Designed for Flight: Poems

Spitting Image

34 Spitting Image Your perfect likeness sat across from me today, crossing town on the express, and all at once I was yours again, you mine. The woman— middle forties, temples daubed with ash— spread the city on her lap, and we were trading dreams and miseries again on a street in Queens—the sky crosshatched with vapors, ubiquitous jets. Her finger drifting north to Morningside Heights brought back the soot, incessant on sills, and jack-o’-lantern smiles of electric storms we waved away but feared. For an instant the train lights blinked, an instant later our glances caught, and because this is not mathematics, not Bridge or bridge construction, I rose and took the seat beside her, apologized for my ruses and pranks. I told her I still think about the two of us back then, nimbly climbing latticed expectations, recalled the time we rode the rail to Montauk, stood in surf and parsed the zodiac’s white lies. Was that the night I began to sort you, deciding which parts to keep, which to feed to fat-mouthed stars? Had you made up your mind to suggest I shove off? Soon, this spitting image of you reached her stop, slipped out into the throng. I could have followed her onto the platform, up the steps to blinding midday, could have tapped an elbow and proposed we grab a bite. But with all the restaurants in town, it always took forever (you remember) to agree on one. ...