No. 6 (NaPoWriMo 2013)

Morning Commute, Philadephia 1989

By Hannah Six

I.

In those days, the El was neither

air conditioned, nor carpeted. And

the windows opened, so that, on a

white-hot august morning, the wind,

smelling of electric fires and

third rails and decades of oily, black grime

would (someone must have thought) refresh

the riders. Certainly, being buffeted by

a breath-sucking, subway-car gasp

was marginally better than death by convection.

Which is precisely what would have happened,

as you swayed and dozed

to the heaving lullaby

of rattles and bangs

in those boxy old cars,

had they lacked their thoughtful, fetid airflow.

II.

Upon arrival, dazed and bleary,  

at 8th Street station,

when you tumbled from

that stinking, old, silver centipede of a train—

your slick soles peeling, step by step,

from the gummy ceramic tiles,

the lights dimmed  

as though for six o’clock Mass or 

a rose-scented, romantic dinner, 

replete with crisp white linens and flatware 

polished to a mirror shine—

you were (daily) astonished by 

a dank, reviving breeze,

thin, pale air circulating in perpetuity

through the system’s tubercular tunnels.

III.

The current, despite its eye-stinging grit, 

felt good—though it shamed you 

to admit it, even to yourself.

Charging forth from maws as black as pitch,

that fetid torrent was accompanied  

on its lonely wanderings

by blue-white flashes

illuminating mysterious debris

(What mother was it, whose baby’s dirty diapers always

could be picked out in the distance, deep inside the tunnels?)

and 

standing puddles

of antediluvian water.

IV.

Onward you tramped, pushed

and pulled by neighbors whose sweat

intermingled with yours

just moments before. Now, anonymous,

individuals no more,

you moved, instead, as

one immense amoebic being,

hurtling stupidly toward

the jaws—

crushing, grinding, revolving and, finally,

spitting you forth,

blinking,

into another day.

 

No. 6 (NaPoWriMo 2013)