The Lexington Avenue Line/Grand Central/8:45 AM
The stream is flowing
four moving stairs- parallel and down.
Commuters seek the path of least resistance
and pass through the turnstiles,
clicking...
a future source of electricity.

Below, at the mouth
of the Downtown platform,
the stream slows and spreads
(the train has not arrived)
and here in the backwater she prepares
for opposition.

Her direction is upward
against gravity and its descendants
but this is not a moral implication--
just a fish against the flow.

I pass and turn around.
The back of her head is blank
against all the others having eyes and nose.
The eyes look past her.
The eyes look past me.

Now, her hand upon the rail,
deliberating
Now, her hand upon the rail,
deliberate
She moves upward on the stair.

My choices are:
to reverse course and
follow her ascent,
to reach her wake and become
a fish against the flow.
Or
to make my passage
as I made it yesterday
and make again tomorrow

She rises out of view
up and behind the clock.
The train arrives
and all movement is liquid.
I turn again and travel with the flow,
but this is not a moral implication.