Subway Encounter #3: A Poem

A singer with a guitar was performing Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car
On the number 7 subway platform at Grand Central
The song always made me cry
But the singer was blurring and mumbling the lyrics
I couldn’t understand them
I tried to remember them and they only came back in snatches
“You got a fast car.”
“Leave tonight or live and die this way.”
“I-I had a feeling that I belonged. I-I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone.”
My eyes misted up.

The train arrived and I entered a near empty car.

Immediately there was an overwhelming smell 

I only smelled it a few times before—always on the subway.

Like unwashed bodies. Like ammonia.

In the corner of the car were two people, a man and a woman, youngish.

The man was black, sitting up,

The woman who was brown-skinned was lying down with her head in his lap. 

She seemed to be sleeping.

She wore a red jacket.

The four other people in the car sat far away from them.

I felt bad for them

They really stank.

I wondered if they just rode on the 7 train back and forth from Shea Stadium to Hudson Yards all day.

When did they sleep? Where did they go? Were they in love or did they just cling to each other for protection with no home outside of the subway?

Once we got into Queens, the car filled up and the smell of other bodies

covered up the couple’s stink.

People sat and stood near them and I couldn’t see them anymore. Did they feel like someone?