Subway Song: Interrupted

Subway Song, Interrupted

Ascending
From
Subway
To
Street,
I’m
Always
Confused—

I don’t live in New York. I use the subway
when I visit, so I keep a stack of partially
used MetroCards on my desk in Seattle. When
I first traveled to New York, I used subway
tokens. Those are useless now, but I still
keep a dish filled with those eccentric coins.
Today, I counted my MetroCards. There are
fifty-three. For years, I’ve tried to remember
to bring them when I travel to NYC. But
what’s the use? I will always forget.
So what should I do with these cards?
Maybe I’ll mail one each to fifty-three
friends who live in NYC. I’ll write them a note:
“I love you, dear friend. I love you inside
and in between the boroughs. These MetroCards
are a mystery. Use them. Unmask them.
Interrogate them. Be thorough.” Or maybe
I should send all fifty-three to the visiting poet
who met her future husband on the F Train.
“Really?” New Yorkers ask (surprised by their city)
when I repeat that story. “Yes,” I say. “She met
him on the subway when she asked him for directions.”
Is that a miracle? Maybe. But, hell, I know a guy—
a lifelong New Yorker—who lost his virginity as he
was crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. Is that a miracle?
He says, “Effing A, it was a miracle,
all thirty-three seconds of it.”

—Descending
From
Street
To
Subway,
I’m
Always
Confused.


Sherman Alexie

Posted over on Blackbird