SUBWAY PASTORAL

I have never used a compass, but when the wind pushes

the flap of a cigarette box the train

is two stops away.

I have told time from the sun only twice, but when light

moves along the track like long blond arms I say, This is it.

I have never spooned soil with my thumb, but the sound

of an unclasping buckle, then the four beats

of a metal drum means the first car is about to emerge.

I have never hunted, but it takes

one hundred and eighty-three steps to walk

the field of this platform, sixteen steps

to go up this staircase, seventeen

to come down. The wrong train

has come twice

in my direction, the right train

three times, in the opposite, and I have had visions

of car wheels and buses,

and standing on the corner of Union Square with my hand

lifted in the air. I hear the squawk

of a turnstile above me and I want to say,

Sit by me, and when the N train arrives,

don’t leave. I am waiting for the R.

Winner of the "Vent Your Inspiration" Poetry Contest