Subway Logic

A riptide of envy overwhelms this morning.
At the girl with the plaid slacks
standing on the platform of the L

I want to lash out. Please note
this fact makes me feel badly.

It's not the slacks exactly
aside from the crime of pills and lint

but she's edging closer to the tracks.
Deliverance arrives only once

from my wifely likelihood
among other jaundiced notions.

The warring factions within me
have taken tactics to the nth degree.

In short, the plotting is heavy.
We keep faith in what we await.

Like the train, which impends.
Meanwhile, she is the owner of delicate hands.

We are not one organism in unison.
If she gets any closer the account will astound.

There's a light in the tunnel: touch me
don't touch me, it doesn't matter.

I'm saying there's an arrangement here.
When the doors slide open watch

how the pattern-legged threaten.
They'll take what's yours of last-ditch heaven

Finding Missing Parts

I stop for a Goldberg's Peanut Chew
one item on a list of treats they only sell
back East that remind me of childhood.
I was warned stopping might make us
miss our train, and it does. My friend
doesn't care. He's one of those people,
the kind I used to be. Everything works out,
he says, then sights as an example that
if I didn't make us miss the "C" train we wouldn't
have taken the "B" train and gotten off
at Lexington station.

A lack of space makes this
particular platform stand out,
my friend explains, then talks
about his photographs of this station,
how they capture the large space
one can find oneself in when lost.
I feel lost then let it pass. I ask
what kind of money is in photography?
When he doesn't answer, I say he should
get into film. That's why I'm doing it.
What? He replied. Writing for money.
We begin to hail cabs. I can't get my
mind off the smoke screen from
the sewer-grate, how it hides me,
the way I used to feel hidden but don't anymore.

Is money going to really make you happy?
He didn't say it but he might as well have
in the look he gave me this morning
when he overheard me screaming
at the Super Shuttle Woman, because she
couldn't speak proper English. That
night on the plane I stare off into the
darkness and wonder how many other
gifts besides peanut chews, privacy and
patience I'll have to sacrifice to be
considered an artists in this material world.