Interborough Transit

Interborough Transit

By Annie Bien


In the morning rush, Brooklyn train cars approach
full-bodied, stand to the side of the door: Let 'em off,
let 'em off, stand cleah of daclosin'doors please.

The seven-fifty a.m. commuters are not all territorial
secretaries who save seats, here's a chance to sit.
A mixture of Wall Street and non-Wall Street

move toward the center of the train, an orchestrated
dance of morning commute, all engaged in strategy:
The woman with the bible, she'll get off at Fulton--

stand in front of her, you'll get a seat. The woman
with the brief case and designer shoes so pointed
her shoes look twice as long as her foot will get off

at Grand Central. She'll beat you to a seat with furrowed
brow and full legal justification falling out of her brief
case. She just dropped off Billy at daycare, and will

ram her foot into your ankle if you take her imagined spot.
The man with the headphones and Wall Street Journal
is too white collar and vertically mobile to let you sit,

he's only taking a train to show he can economize
when necessary and will cut you off with his nose pressed
to stock listings. The painter reading the Daily News,

smells a bit too manly for this time of morning, white
dust flying from his painters pants; the student rises
for the old man, closing Anna Karenina, isn't that nice.

If you get a seat, beware of the dozers, whose heads
might tip your way, the screech of the brake wheels
at Chambers wakes you up. By instinct you know

three express stops to Grand Central, where one
transfer to Fifty First Street lands you in Midtown.
Follow the flow, stay calm and step lightly,

it's all part of the morning routine, provided
there are no derailments, floods, transit strikes,
no police incidents, passengers sick, no service

changes, where West side trains run on the East side;
and East and West side trains run north and south
in interborough transience.

Posted over on London Times Online