The Station
From the distance,
they looked like shapes
shifting and gliding on a wet lit street,
waiting to trip and fall against each other when the doors opened up.
I took the outside seat, my moldy bag in the other,
so as not to draw attention.
The tall ones slithered into their places,
pin straight strands tracing the faces and figures
of suburban youth.
Stocky ones hurriedly found their spots,
And plump, matronly ones did their inspections
before settling down.
I was finally forced to the window
as an hourglass approached
with the vigor of a runway walk.
My pile of mold saturated in expensive perfume.
I tried to tell myself that we’re all just shapes,
colors and contours moving like fleshy sieves across the transom of the world,
and that beauty was perhaps applicable to something else-
Maybe a lucid cameo in the glass, beneath an incandescent shower,
with a draped pearl necklace of strung bridge lights.
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