Strap-hanging in a subway car
with other commuters,
swaying. Bumping hips
like pickles shaken in a jar
at each bend. Wheels abrade the air.
Jiggling portraits on plexiglass show
men and women mulling plans
and cross-appeals, or staring
at phones pastel-backed as duotangs.
Then a voice from the emptiness outside:
“Call that gandy dancing, dog-fuckers?
I’m starving, so big-cat and bang
it down.” Cackles vibrate in the crypt
we’re traversing, skeletal limbs scrape
closer in the surrounding dark.
Then steel clangs and treads grip
gravel. Halogen lights flare
on the tunnel roof. Slowing, our capsule
nears a hollering foreman and his crew.
And we were never scared —
never felt the cold slop of panic
in forgotten organs. Our ghosts
debunked, we grip harder
what’s trained and automatic.
Header photograph © Jason D. Ramsey.
Daniel Cowper is a poet from Bowen Island, BC. His poems have appeared in various literary reviews in Canada, the US, and Ireland, including Arc, Vallum, and Southword. He is the author of a poetry chapbook, The God of Doors, and a book of poetry entitled Grotesque Tenderness, forthcoming from McGill-Queen’s University Press in Spring 2019. He and Emily Osborne live in their small cabin on Bowen, and edit poetry for Pulp Literature.
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