I’m in my cart, riding down

I’m in my cart, riding down
Jewish National Fund Avenue. My eyes
absorb and recognize places and landscapes:
the women’s farm is already behind us
and here is the Meir Quarter, the eastern boundary of the city of my birth.
But there’s something I don’t understand in the picture of the street.
It is too wide, and there are too many traffic lanes
and no carts, carts from which domestic animals stare,
making their rolling sounds.
Do I see this or am I imagining it? The entire area has grown
asphalt and buildings
instead of open space from here to Sarona.
Even worse, I think,
is that the woman behind me is not my mother
but a caregiver, Filipino or Thai,
assigned to me by the National Insurance Institute.

I’m in my cart, riding down