Bedford and Avenue H, schoolbooks riding unbelted shotgun cross to Ocean Avenue, not Bay Parkway weaving with buses, sanitation trucks, cement mixers and straight backed brick apartment buildings in red with attached fire escapes and retirees in folding chairs Green means go, and the kid whose radio outprices his car can certainly plow ahead while I pull over at the fruit shop when the long gray curb smiles “space”, popping my quarter in leaving like Santa smiling with bagged nectarines, plums, hot bread Then take the alphabet down past Avenue Z to Voohires by Lundy’s once again merge on the Belt, under the “El”, for a moment, beside the ocean, for a few more till I hit the bridge winding up Verrazano’s approach… Take the top level to feel the wind, and merge across impatient lines to toss out my token, now an electric pass raising that orange arm with a startled jerk to cross more lanes for Father Capadano Boulevard South Beach, the Basillio Inn and Sand Lane, (which lost its carousel for condominiums and a dolphin fountain) as the boardwalk lines the drive and the marsh brush still waves bending with green and tan One last turn down on Slater with its evolution of tract houses taking me back through decades till I hit  my parents’ home ]]>