On the morning of the new Q train, we passed a woman’s body slumped against a wall. White liquid poured from her mouth like snow, until the paramedics showed up, for which everyone was grateful. In my mind I was busy riding a Palomino through a forest, solving an equation in air. My thoughts hard & soft, a terrain. All week I wanted to talk to you about this small sad thing, the woman’s purse at her side, hands trembling like my horse at the stream while we looked & kept walking, these details, which make up a poem, a life, & could help you know me. All this time, I wanted you to understand the emptying in me, below the earth, where someone was singing.

“On Turning Thirty” Jen Levitt

On the morning of the new Q train, we passed a woman's body slumped against a wall. White liquid poured from her mouth like snow, until the paramedics showed up, for which everyone was grateful. In my mind I was busy riding a Palomino through a forest, solving an equation in air. My thoughts hard & soft, a terrain. All week I wanted to talk to you about this small sad thing, the woman's purse at her side, hands trembling like my horse at the stream while we looked & kept walking, these details, which make up a poem, a life, & could help you know me. All this time, I wanted you to understand the emptying in me, below the earth, where someone was singing.