After Work

The blurred wall
of another train
passes our passing train

A synthetic voice
announces our stops (and new
messages on someone’s phone)

A made-up face
gazes at
a magazine

A man with maps
of worry beneath his eyes
stares into spaces between faces

(Each of us eager to be elsewhere!)

A car adrift
on a different tide
floats beside us awhile

A man in paint-stained pants
wears a jacket
advertising a bank

The train’s steel wheels
scrape steel rails
like screaming skeletons

We all have plastic
identity tags
at our waists and necks

(This surge in the brain! This urge to relate!)

Outside shines
a twilit sky
of flaming foil



.