On a dismal train
traveling noisily
from Hoyt-Schermerhorn to Lafayette,
a man with piss on his clothes and beer on his breath
lurches charmingly toward me
the skinny and smiling and paper-brown man
sits down with his thigh
pressed against mine and studies me
with rheumy eyes
life is getting me down
he says and I nodded, knowing
I’ve needed others,
always,
to give me some relief
and now I smelled it coming:
anonymous release
Life is hard he said
you bust your ass at work and then you
get home to some ball bustin’
from the woman-you-love
I nod as middle-aged merchant’s wives
sidle slowly away from the pair of us
and our troubled talk
You’re too pretty to have a hard life
he says
That's how it is I say
and he doesn't tell me
I'm too young to know
he would be wrong
and then
he holds out a skeleton arm
wrapped in sinew and street dust
and I shake his hand and leave
the holy place
About Me
- welcome to the labcat
- the labcat is the online life of labrys, smith college's art/literary magazine. we collect poems, prose, flash-fiction, letters, diary entries, essays, doodles, paintings, oils, sketches, photography, animation, videos, graphics, chicken-scratches, stippling, charcoal rubbing, pastels, collages, observations, music and whatever else inspires you. send it in bulky bundles to labrys@smith.edu.
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