taxi to the village

I hail a taxi
or rather, my competent little sister does
it’s 5:30 on a Friday evening in Columbus Circle
“We’ll never get a cab!” I fret

“Watch this!” she says, in her black business suit
steps off the curb, whistles,and immediately
a bright yellow taxi glides to our service

I’m impressed.
in my student days I walked miles through Manhattan
or rode the subway
never had the money for a taxi, never got the knack
of hailing a cab

the driver is a turbaned Sikh
I struggle to remember my Punjabi

“Vai Guru-ji ka Khalsa!” I shout at him stupidly
he gives me an odd look in the rear-vew mirror

“Relax,” says my little sister
the competent one, the business woman

I sit back and enjoy the ride down
through Times Square
to the Village

my sister gloats
“Did you see that? Did you see how I hailed
that cab?”
it’s her first visit to the city
I’m showing her around

but times have changed, the city has changed,
and I’m an old man, with nothing to show for my years
but a vague sense of direction
and some fragments of exotic languages
lodged in my brain

she’s the one with the expertise, the business sense
the one who knows how to hail a cab


--Ross Bender