Park Street

 

I don’t think about my account balance

until I am sitting in a subway car

and I don’t think about paychecks

until someone boards with large luggage.

Stare at the seat between my legs,

and I begin to think about real estate.

 

I don’t think about time

until I relinquish a priority rest,

and I don’t think about careers

until I see forty year old women in clashing tracksuits.

I don’t think about my options

until I notice how dirty the floors are

from shoes with better places to be.

 

I don’t think about home

until I’ve passed

all stops that sit beside colleges

and I don’t think about desperation

until a sign offers a trade:

Cash for Plasma.

The woman across the aisle clutches her bags.

 

I don’t think about culture

Until I hear covers of pop songs

Played by a violinist. We step over

onto the platform. Their upbeat melodies echo through cruddy tunnels

beneath the roar of shoes with better places to be.

 

 

*

 

The ride home is always shorter

 

Night old liquor like relief as it hits porcelain

sends ripples through the lake between us that

commits to drowning

or something louder. Later,

the potholes in your pickup

driving up Beacon

jerk the passenger seat and these eggshells.

I remember smoke on your tongue

and thinking about the Surgeon General:

My mother’s habit of hiding

water damage coated in fresh paint.

Thrown only by the smell of rot

and the sound of high tide.