by Rebecca G. Biber
When I was a college student I sublet a room in this ground-floor
apartment we’re passing now. Generations past the word coed,
but they still called us girls, so did we. It’s a two-story brick cube,
four units up and down. The doors remain that institutional blue.
Every night, strangers’ footsteps above me, the stereotype
of upstairs neighbors: why so much walking back and forth?
As if dragging chains. All night, sirens, for Ingalls Street
was an ambulance route, and college students are always hurting
themselves or being hurt. Nearby I once found a guy’s bank deposit
sticking out of the ATM, and returned the paper slips and checks
to his frat house, where I was greeted at the door with a leer. Bro
almost showed me to his room. Try to do a mitzvah while female.
To cut the corner from Ingalls around to Huron, the way
to main campus, the movies, coffee and food, we take the brick
wish path the city made official with these pavers and wood rails.
Maybe it was the property owner saying, this is the trail
you want to follow? Ok, let’s make it respectable and real.
They must have known nobody walked the corner. Efficiency
or avoiding a collision with folks coming home from class. Sis,
those were the days we got out of the way, as women. Nobody
had told us yet we didn’t have to. The swerve of least resistance.
I still sometimes dodge but now my age often clears the way.
I look at frat boys like fire hydrants and, after their surprise,
they find the passing lane. The woman I roomed with that summer
was the one who taught me men didn’t count so much. Not enough
to get exercised about. When one shoved me at a concert, unaware
I was a person, and I elbowed back, and he got mad, it was she
who snapped, She’s much smaller than you! while a dozen capable,
sizable men looked on. Try to do a mitzvah for another female.
It’s not that I want to be large or loud or male, but I’d like to matter
and be seen clear enough so the city puts in bricks to make it
official. I’d tell the girl I was: one day you will have paid rent
and learned lessons, and now I never have to stop here, walking by.
Wish Path. Photo credit: Rebecca Biber
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Rebecca G. Biber spends her days teaching piano as an independent instructor and performing with local theatre groups. Her first poetry book, Technical Solace, was published by Fifth Avenue Press and her second book, Escapement, comes out in July 2026 from NFSPS. You can preorder her new book at rebeccagbiberpoet.com or read about the fusion of poetry and music at doggerel.blog.
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This is an original poem, brought to you by Poet Tree Town, a Washtenaw-based poetry-in-public initiative and celebration of local poets. Find out more about Poet Tree Town on Instagram and Facebook, or say hello at [email protected].
