STRANGER IN THE SUBWAY
Stranger in the subway
I want to stretch my legs and
put my feet
on top of your feet.
My heavy, heavy lower eyelids,
your flushed, apricot cheeks.
Let’s go home and sleep next to eachother
without touching one another
except for one of each of our wobbly,
tired knees, and maybe a few cold toes.
I have low-wattage lightbulbs in
my hallways. They make the night
glow like bronzed skin and
you could pull the cord that turns
it on, if you would like.
Would you like?
We could pretend we are in the Caribbean
basking in the sun, and stand very still
between rooms, wringing our hands, imagining until
the cockroaches climb the walls and
interrupt shared sentiment.
Or we could go to your apartment:
where do you live, dear lady?
“I am not the conclusion, I am
the continual question.”
That’s how you’d respond
and I would understand.
And so, I will go alone to the room
that asks me to exist within it –
conscious, moving about as if
a baby in amniotic fluid
floating lazily in a large womb. I will
throw out a limb
so you know I am here.
Yes, yes. I recognize your voice.
The teacup on my desk
adorned with pears and leaves
is hollow but for a stain
and I understand the way it
looks at me with such
heavy longing and sadness.
The driving rain outside the window
beats against everything. It says to me
something along the lines of how
I should get going before what I have
loved changes me into something
I will loathe irreversibly.
I want to put my feet upon
its feet, ask it keep quiet. Explain
that if it hushes up then
I will explain the thing
that has needed (for so
unbearably long) to be explained:
“I am not the hypothesis’ conclusion. I am
every continual, silenced, and unanswerable question.”
Yes. Yes. I recognize that voice.
