I.

The ceiling is low, walls high,
lamps glare from all directions.
Light shafts like broom handles
poke the gut, stomach in throat.
Meals forgotten or uneaten. This
third day, which day of the week
unknown, ticket pocketed for
the six o’clock morning train, early,
the day will not be pea-green-lost.

II.

Cab driver quiet, transmission
smooth. Speed, centrifugal force
combine. Taxi wants to hurl its
passenger into the backward river,
but the ride continues, all the way to
the strange uncorner, to find a new
building there, new tunnels for
two-legged moles, naked, clothed,
running for the dark in the dark.

III.

The waitress is old, but age
has not dulled her sense of
humor. The sandwich is greasy &
good. Up high on the train board,
odd & even track numbers beckon
short- & long-distance travelers,
tear them from their phones.
Men walk like bullets.
Women walk like invitations.

IV.

There are ghosts on the train:
lights go on & off like eyelids
out of kilter. Briefcase & bag are
companions, keep away old men,
talkative women, ill-smelling bodies.
Generators are the music, force
fantasies into the forehead’s pain.
Pictures in the window pass &
time passes, most certainly, by.

V.

Not yet winter, but cold enough,
the wind batters, the lake is white
& angry. The faces in the crowd
are grim, wear their jaw-set masks
like shields, daring an engagement,
fearing an entanglement. On the
brick wall of a warehouse, a
painted ad proclaims The House of
Time. How long this minute lasts.

# # #

Eugene Stevenson’s poems have appeared in DASH Literary Journal, Gravel Literary Review, The Hudson Review, Icarus, and Swamp Ape Review.

Photo: Victor Rodriguez