Plastic Bags / Smudged Painting

Doors open.

Crowds push forward.

The metro sighs and hiccups along the track.

Sylvia sinks further down into her seat.

Empty expressions melt into their newspapers.

Grey faces,

eyes closed

and

for once,

nothing is going on beneath their lids.

They are hibernating,

fearing the winter of their lives.

She wishes she was afraid of the cold.

The intercom echoes

“Station Lionel-Groulx.

Connection entre les lignes oranges et vertes,”

and her legs exit through the doors,

with the rest of the mob.

Her body stays in the seat.

Her heartbeat quietens.

Doors open. Crowds push forward.

The metro sighs and hiccups along the track.

The air vents whistle and blow in her ears,

pulling shivers up and over her shoulders,

allowing them to rest on her neck.

Sylvia’s bangs flutter in the wind,

skidding against her eyelashes.

Over and over,

the metro interrupts itself.

It opens on stations and waits,

as if it can hear someone running,

unable to miss this train.

The metro is waiting for him to get on.

As if he is a smudged painting,

She can’t quite make out his face.

Hidden behind heaping plastic bags,

he enters the train,

bringing rain and dark clouds with him.

Slumping down into a seat in front of her,

he lets his baggage thunder to the floor.

His head finds his hands

and leads his spine in a lean

over cliff, over mountains of knees,

over lakes of his own creation.

No one looks up.

Faces still blank and absent.

Her tries to erase herself.

She can’t.

She looks up.

“I just want it. I need it”

Wiping his cheek against the advertisement board,

he scratches at his arms.

He pulls his hair.

The storm blows her hair across her face,

eyes squinting to see through the hail.

“Station Lionel-Groulx…”

She forces her body to follow her legs.

A plastic bag drifts after her.

It stays with her.

Doors close.