oblique shard
In the steel hearts of subways, we are
molecules of breath, briefly brilliant,
colliding, our dampened voices
echoing off cold metal walls,
a cacophony of whispers, murmurs,
and the clatter of shoes on tiles.
We are strangers, standing shoulder
to shoulder, our gazes averted, our bodies
pressed together in the crush of
rush hour, the slick of sweat and
unspoken desires.
In the subway, we are briefly human,
a fleeting congregation of unbidden thoughts,
our hearts hidden behind backpacks
and newspapers,
and the rustle of the train on the tracks,
a lullaby of lost connections.
I peer into the lives of others,
the secrets hidden in the folds of coats,
the stories woven into the fabric of
worn-out jeans, the dreams pressed
between pages of yellowing paperbacks,
and wonder if they feel the same ache:
the longing for connection, to be more than
the sum of our parts, the spaces between
the atoms that make us up.
Strangers, pressed against glass,
the damp heat of breath condensing
on the window, as we trace
our fingers through the fog of our existence,
writing in the language of the forgotten,
a calligraphy of chance encounters.
lean raptor
raw palm
mystic umbra
night briar
verbal flint