Transfer Point - 7th Street Metro Station
Joseph Remlinger
I’m going to the 7th Street Metro Station.
A lover waits downtown;
She doesn’t know I’m coming.
My stomach twists and turns
Doing a waltz in perfect time.
I trip, I fall, embarrassed,
Unable to move from where I lied.
Lovers get on the train—laughing—
She looks at him like Lauren used to look at me.
A man, sixty if a day, conducts an orchestra beside me.
I hear the trumpets, oboes and the tympani now,
The madness becoming minor melodies,
Harmonies and sounds.
The eyes on board are red, ragged, tired and torn;
Shredded, red cobwebs, miserable and bored.
A fat, sweating man in a cheap suit plops down,
The plastic seat helpless against his polyester.
I move toward the door feeling claustrophobic.
The symphony reaches its peak.
But I can’t see her now—so I sit back down.
And while most of us watch the blonde in red exit
The lovers keep laughing; I hate that sound.