Train to The End of The World
Metro North platform like a wailing wall
survivors stand heads bowed waiting
for the train to the end of the world.
Parking lot now half-filled, yellow ribbons tied to antennae
on cars
abandoned
by commuters who never came home.
Crematorium ash drifts uptown on a sour wind, the migraine
that wouldn’t quit.
The bond trader back at her desk by 7 AM the next morning
gags on a buttered roll.
Root canal of city tooth labyrinth
Vicodin sway trance across 7th Ave.
holding my jaw in a numb jut.
I hop the “N” 2 stops to 49th
Stare at sheet music in Colony’s window
avoid the office a few more minutes.
A hollow echo down the tube
as the falling column roars
here I am boarding the train to the end of the world.
The PATH is rough, flooded and treacherous.
Fly a flag, wave a knife, steal a plane, sift gray mud for
body parts.
Busy desk a mountain of rubble, recession’s blinders on.
Will I reach the promised land with my children?
Will I accomplish the thought, word and deed, voice of peace
and security?
Will the tassle be torn from my shoe, jammed under the
opposing seat of this foursome?
Will I be late for that early meeting?
Is my beeper dead? Is my Palm Pilot alive
where I have crashed?
Lights flicker and rails squeal past Christopher St.
9/2001
[Originally published online in Napalm Health Spa: Report
2002]
From Demon Commuter and Other Poems by Steven L. Hirsch
For more on the book: Demon
Commuter: Hirsch, Steven L: 9781958266038: Amazon.com: Books
For more on Steven L. Hirsch: Steven
L. Hirsch – GIANT STEPS PRESS
