Man stands on
elevated train track,
sleeves bristling, wind
flapping his lapels and mussing his
Hundred Dollar Haircut and
fifty dollar coat as he
waits in the quiet, the cold
Commuters, not a
group but a
series of islands too
bored to war
too busy shoving
music in ears and
fingers in pockets
to ask each other to move,
instead bump and huddle and
accidentally
keep each other company
Younger man asks him if the
train is late and he says
yes or
no or
maybe, he's not sure and can't hear himself over the
wind and anyway
so what does it matter and
here comes the train now rumbling and scraping along
and something's wrong, the sparks and the screeching and the
shrieking of brakes as they fail and fumble to
stop it but can't
Cars begin jostling and
metal begins screaming and
younger man's running but
no one's else moving so he
pulls the other away as the
train is derailing, a thunder of terror and a hot wind of reckoning the
commuters all falling and going to pieces,
meat is a murder and blood is a-following and the
dust is a-settling and the
wind sound's returning
Younger man pulls himself
up and the other, helps him to
feet they're the
only two standing in this
newsworthy rendering
"Why'd you not move" the
younger man asks him with
look of confusion and blood and dust spattering
He straightens up tie and rebuttons button and
smacks dirt off his newspaper and kicks off an eardrum to
check on his watch and cross-reference schedules,
doesn't look over just says to the younger man,
"Happens every day, you just
have to get used to it."
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