It's just poetry, it won't bite

On the Red Line


03.01.19 Posted in today's words by

John Grey’s most recent poem to appear here was “Dogs and Their People” (May 2018).

On the Red Line
By John Grey

Curious, these people drawn out
of some commuter hat
to fill all the available spaces.
Odd, the faces and the bodies
chosen by circumstance
to share the red line
from Downtown Crossing
to Harvard Square with me.
I’m by myself and yet, on either side,
some students, nose rings
wriggling to the jiggle of the rail,
knocking against my knees,
an older man with beard,
maybe a professor and
a couple of tourists
with heavily marked up maps.
Across from me is
an intellectual type,
head buried in Spinoza
and a couple of black kids
singing under their breath
and a Spanish woman,
and a man with a thick Russian accent
talking to himself.
The ones in my life
are chosen deliberately
compared to this.
The lovers and the friends,
I open my door for very carefully,
after much thought and feeling say,
“Yes you can ride this train.”
But every stop, some leave,
some more get on so randomly.
Company is never this busy,
never this loud.
So many people ride my solitude.
Such a variety
to not knowing me.



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