The Train station
by Kamau Rucker
A man talks so loud everyone can hear.He stands to check his parcels and surveys
His audience. An older gentleman says little –
The boisterous one misses the point. A woman
Tries to approximate the volume. A lively response
Ensues. It takes forever to arrive at the Central Grande.
Wall Street assaults a young woman with talk.
She nods and feigns sleep alternately. He aims
His words at her face. The IRT hurtles itself
Out of Brooklyn, screeching. He has enough
Words to wrap her twice, needing affirmation,
He sends a smile across the car, stopping at Franklin.
A man from the twenty-first century
With the short headless axe requests one million
Dollars. “You got a million dollars?
I need like a million dollars.”
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Notes from the lexington avenue subway
by Rachel Bishop
The 6 train stops, a cylinder of light
in a darkness too deep to think about above ground.
My hand slides on the greasy silver pole,
a reminder of the hands of others who were
locked inside themselves,
sending connecting flickers across
the subways,
midnight,
morning,
harsh running sidewalks,
debris,
newspaper bits floating through the parks,
believing in a fate
defined by the moments when they let it all in, see everything at once
so clearly
that it leaves nothing left to dream.
and when I look at you
through all of this-
through a telescope made
of everything I know-
my life begins in that glance.
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