3 am or 4 am, I often wake up, wide awake, and there’s no use trying to get back to sleep. The memories press me hard and the bed is empty of any but me, and too big. Sometimes, in these hours, I wake up and write. Sometimes what I write isn’t even sad. Enjoy!
Subway Platform
Two young Wall Street guys,
talking about going to Montauk,
how far it is, two hours.
Eavesdropping, I lift up my fingers for three.
One will go to Montauk.
The other won’t because it’s too far.
An attractive man in his 30s,
wearing jeans and a button-down shirt,
props one leg up on the pole,
blocking traffic,
perhaps aerating his balls,
as he watches a movie on his Smartphone,
expressionless. And never looks up.
The homeless man at the far end
wears a warm brown coat with faux fur
to frame his face.
Nobody sits in a third of the seats.
He may smell. I don’t know.
If so, it doesn’t reach to where I sit.
But that often clears out a subway car.
Or maybe it’s how he looks,
homeless, unpredictable.
Sometimes they go crazy on the train.
I’ve been known to get off and move to the next car,
which is hypocritical,
when I say I don’t judge people, and not really fair.
But there it is.
Stories I never asked. Stories I don’t know.
Dozens of stories made up, critical.
I wonder what they think up about me.
