i was born at ten in the morning
on a monday in april,
and somewhere, somebody was hungover
and an hour late for work.
thirty seven years later
in the middle of times square
i cartwheel under pink neon,
and let the sunshine storm away.
my last twenty gets spit into the cubby and
i fold it calmly like the wallet it wears.
past the bars of the entrance the entrance is packed,
the long march of boots is sequestered upstairs.
one day it will all line up.
i check the nonsense
straighten my tie, cough loudly,
jump the turnstile.
and descend.
+
in a world of cold subway seats and
endless waiting faces,
it’s easy to feel like a prisoner of one’s mistakes.
i tap a clean shoe between wheel depressions
and think in clicks and screams.
this current evening seems to be a test, or
a long shot at best, radiating.
now is when love should be becoming
more of a shared experience
and less of a knowledge of the sum of the parts
but all of our dinners and all of her parties
don’t even add up to parallel hearts
being an outsider used to feel wild
and free but my BA in college and my minor
denial seem silly when up against slick recruitees
i can’t compete with her friends
and their beards
their lofts and their artistic statements
but maybe i can walk away
on the train
people sit with their bodies and their phones
and pass out and pass around, indifferent to this.
i wring my hands, a bottle of wine
between my feet;
normalcy is a mask but so is skin
so is society.
the future seems impossible.
all the seams i wish i’d mended properly
fall apart under
rush hour scrutiny
paying little attention
but to the unknown;
the unknown here being a new pattern,
a set of patterns, running,
and never looking back or side to side
but straight into her book with her fire
behold: the unequal confidence of a life lived
open to desire.
her finger on the bottom corner of the page
twitching, flicking, nervous,
ready to turn
no cage, no sweater, no passion is here
just bodies in ether, bound to appear in
the acoustic yelp of showtime!
and sweat, some of it hot enough.
my deduction, off from work then,
painted nails under the buzz,
having been ready for the teacher to appear
but the teacher is struck dumb
everybody sees the way the light hits
she reaches into a pocketbook
sneaks a look and makes a list
one more line before the final lurch
towards decision. the coin’s been in the air so long
it casts a shadow on the rails
she calls it
tails
+
her nametag howled into the early evening
as i left the train and climbed to your apartment
a summit i would not reach.
and it was all right;
everything was all right
from your smile to your heartache to your shoes.
and now you have an excuse but you don’t want
nor need
an excuse do you?
if you look you can see a lifetime lived
in echo and buzz and tile.
every seven stops you have a new set of passengers
and every seven stops you’re a completely different person
did you know that?
each of us is a cell
the subway car is blood
the tunnels are veins
the earth is body
the animal kingdom is the brain
that does the automatic tasks
without complaining or being aware enough to complain
and the humans are the mind
imagining, wondering, watching as hot bodies rust
the other planets are other bodies
under whose influence we must fall
the sun is the love that lasted longer
than it had any right to.
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