Descent
For more than forty years I have descended ramps
into a maze of tunnels and turnstiles,
where the token-sellers resemble prisoners
behind Plexiglass, talking to their visitors.
Down in the darkness, I take the L train,
the car filled with people,
everyone a stranger, sitting close.
After the dynamite, the digging,
the death, there is knowledge here
beneath the earth, the rush of danger,
the man on the platform who pushes past –
Out of my way lady – and the one in the grimy parka
going car to car, demanding change.
I stand across from a man
who looks like a god on an Uxmal pyramid.
Clutching the white pole, I feel 14th Street
flowing above us and our souls
rising above the darkness.
At Union Square I climb the steep stairs.
It is morning and the sun is shining.
Page(s) 7
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