One Street continues

If I had known, when I was twenty-three
and had married wrong, or again
when I was thirty-five and crushed
by the weight of proving myself,
or forty-eight and nearly dead
from over-work and exhaustion

that one day I would live
on a street where light
paints wet pavement
in circus colors, that
I would be free to walk
in the dark, humming
with gratitude and ease
of well-being, answering
to no one, dazzled and glad
among all these good people

I would have worried less,
I would have gone to sleep smiling,
secure that such a time
of bliss would come.