Winter Commute

Dear friend, asleep  upright in a seatwhen I boarded the train  goat-stepping overyour legs outstretched  why didn't I wake youbut instead watched  you sleep, watched overyou two seats away  but, no, merelywatched, still  life, faceno longer fresh  but a peachsweet even  as skin loosens fromflesh flesh  from pit those littlewrinkles you can make  with a thumb-presskissing the outer  orbit of your eyesthe longer lines  charteddown crescent cheeks  your jaw relaxedlips parted neat  compact woman'sbody buttoned up  in business darksfoggy gray  starched contrastsat neckline & cuff  what reprieve hereshuttling underground  before the courtedclient you must meet  is met you're floatingsomewhere where  the car's cold rayscan't reach, absorbed in  other versions, in-version of a life  as when we watchchildren sleep  so far from uswe don't dare wake them  in the uncontrollableuncontrolled  are you back there nowin your own deep new  episode withoutpillow or comforter or  parent standing overyou at night but for  a few minutes at peacewith stolen rest  hurtling motionlessforgive me for not  sitting down beside youplacing a hand  softly on your tailoredarm to call you back  when all I could haveoffered: weak pleasantries  phatic dischargingof routines impositions  variegated surfacesof elected obligations  what does oneowe another  in commonwhat comfort what  welcome releaserehearsed in  the dark, dark cladfriend, foe,  Proserpina or Plutoshape-shifting  roles all playhaphazardly  in false fundamentdecked out in  eye-open fineryembroidered so  elaborately it's rippedright off our backs.  That afternoonwhen my stop came  I left you suspendedin your frail respite  and haven't seen you since.

(From The Figure of a Man Being Swallowed by a Fish by Joshua Weiner. Copyright © 2013 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.)