Daily On the Underground

masked, your breath is loud as train meeting tunnel, his, beside you, and sun

to rumble, again underneath this, to emerge elsewhere, in new rain

i thought we stopped in the middle of nowhere i hate when that happens

guarding her eyes an army of dense antennae and proboscises

lulling jolts and calm shrieking noises i should sleep but i'm too tired

someone smells rank, at each station i triangulate, but my nose is no good

no laid track or bored tunnels can stop one ending up in the wrong place

olive green must be in season. all these trunks are decked in mossy matte neutrals.

dusk enough to apply lipstick in the window but not enough to gauge the outcome

heard through empty headphones: “are you on match.com?” nearby, solitaire on a sideways iPhone. _

the cliché: two weeks to build a habit, two days to obliterate one. _

to look up one day and notice that the advertisements have new blooms _

four days in Spain and my cansada brain is mescling unlike words again _

don’t dwell on the fact that you’re trapped underground in a dark manmade tube _

some glide down the stairs with a beetle’s syncopated legs. others tumble.  _

she lopes toward the doors trailing her children(?) her whole face smiling _

1. read a heart- wrecking novel in public with hot wet eyes. don’t move. _