MBTA

I think I’m going to try and write one new poem a week. It seems like a reasonable goal. And if it’s not great at the end of the week, I’ll move on to the next one, maybe come back later. The point is to achieve expression, not greatness. Rachel said this one might make me sound just a little bit creepy, but I’m OK with that. I’m also OK with the idea that this sort of thing has been done before. It’s poetry: If you’re afraid of coming across as creepy or derivative you’ll never get anything written. Anyway, here’s last week’s output, which continues the theme of writing about work and office life.

MBTA

God bless the pretty girls on the MBTA,
in skirt-suits and sneakers
their office shoes in plastic bags
swaying up the crumbling station stairs.

Every day I follow them up
outdoors up
through the park up
back indoors up
into rooms of flickering cubicles.

And while I follow and stare
they look down, tuck still-damp hair
behind podcast earbuds, turn away
from passengers, pan-handlers, fund-raisers,
and I know I’m no more alone
than anyone else on this train.