Glances

Step into the turnstile, tap the card on the machine.

Exercise in routine. Save the middling hour, the dead 

minutes, counting of yet another characterless commute. 

What does this day tell, from the fortune

teller of the stars?  The proverbial incidence, say

infatuation, count it as luck. 

So what the moment wouldn’t tell when you enter 

like a gush of wave to sand that could not get any hotter

was how it was always happening     with us.

The train, its gunlike recoil,  a touch of bodies. 

The wheels in motion, a sweeping gesture of kindness. 

Which god could I ask to map the encounters  where we met

almost at the brink of speaking,

almost at the brink of contact,

almost at the brink of knowing too soon.

That each time the train unloads the passengers, 

you close  the space, the gap 

between exhaustion and tenderness. 

This time, the commute no longer 

a nameless experience, no longer one of those days,

a lull in a normal Tuesday afternoon.