She’s on the Red Line,
no doubt headed for the rarified air
of Harvard Square.
Her nails are painted green
but freshly bitten.
She fiddles with the brown ringlet
that won’t leave her eyes alone.
A stuffed backpack
is her only companion.
She’s wearing some kind of perfume
that I can’t decipher
and a gray woolen skirt
that rests politely on her knees.
She doesn’t look in my direction.
They never do.
And, even if she did,
I’m much too shy to smile.
And certainly saying “hello”
is out of the question.
I drop my head into my book,
scan a paragraph,
then look up again,
repeat this exercise for five stops.
She is one more
that I would like to know
but never will.
I live in a world
of opportunities lost,
risks not taken.
It even has its own transport system.

Zetetic separator

—John Grey is an Australian poet and a US resident, recently published in New Plains Review, Perceptions, and the anthology No, Achilles.

One Response

  1. islandmoonrise
    islandmoonrise
    at · Reply

    Love this, sorry I missed it and that I’m two months overdue in commenting!

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