Light Rail
I find aubades in curtains, blushed and river-hued,
in these high-strung bricks of a Harlem still slightly
un-gentrified, just south of 125th, just west of Lex:
as we cross the river, sometimes the sun strikes prisms
to pause the series, lost to a neutral shade or the wary
squint of a blind; and sometimes I find another leave-taking
in the gladioli dawning from a canvas bag,
their fervent ripeness clutched in a man’s hand, a man
who loves to make the same woman laugh
every morning in the seconds before they leave the train,
the flowers brilliant against her skin, as if caught
in panes of gentle lies like petals among leaves.
Shimmering less than light, glowing with sated hungers,
the tunnel silvers glass to ghost my face, where I
might have swallowed these goodbyes as the sun,
the stars, or the stripped stem of a rose searing and lacerating
the pulsing of my thoughts. Scored by windows, flowers,
lovers, palettes without a brush, I am unable
to do more than weep and breathe into my heart,
too ready to blame and to curse what I became
through becoming this through becoming here
through becoming who I have become.
Gina Rae Foster, 2017 (all rights reserved)
