Subway Suite, Movement II

(A part of a three "movement"-long poem. This particular movement, or at least a more finely crafted version of it, will be featured in a piece of mine for the Arbor Composer's Collective.)


Say
you're in a tunnel.

Say you are standing
barefoot on the subway tracks,
metal expiring between
your toes.

Above you,
the oasis of yellowhite lights
left slowly roasting
since the dawn
of man
and machine.

Say the hour has shrunken
past utterance.
Say you are alone
except for a man
shadowed against stairs,
blowing beyond breath
into his horn.

He plays pop songs,
but only the chorus.
He plays notes,
but only beneath grunts.
He plays his loss,
but only to himself.

To you,
he is just
murmuring.

Say you hear
laughing.
But there is no
one there to laugh.

You stare
into the tunnel's abyss
that exists in theory
but cannot be proven.

Say inside
is everything:

the hollers of your mother
as you slipped from the womb,

the hairs of your father's mustache
honed to a point in reprimand,

the sweat sighing on your lost
lover's brow past dusk,


the sharp yelp of your bones
as your knee cracks,


the cackles you can't hear
every time you center
yourself.

Say you scream.

You scream louder
and shriller than
you can.

Say you wait

and the loss of echo
is more piercing
than an answer.