Paterson: Early Winter, ‘78
—for Ed Smith
I will see you once again
on the long silver train
people call “night”.
The sizzling green neon
of Van Houten Ave. pizzeria
will smooth the wrinkles
from your corduroy coat
& it’ll be what we expected
of that time & of that place
&, so, to let it all slide into
the crisp russet Meadowlands.
Sun will rise again on the good friends
we once had, now dreaming on the sly
as we cash in the empties from our karma
& become an animation of two guys
walking through the paradise
that New Jersey once was.
by Joel Lewis
from The Rutherford Red Wheelbarrow
No. 3, 2010