Q-TRAIN
Nigel Van Wieck, 1990
Half-note, hairpin—pungent, dried-up sexpot
on the orange & yellow seats, slumped in thought.
The night critters are her only friends & enemies.
Lonely, lovelorn moonbeam—washed-out redhead.
Sundown, daybreak—sleepwalk, pass-out. Wake up
to a strange man’s hand, the taxi-cab rhapsody—
5 a.m. halal truck, bodega. This is the subway sutra:
late night transfer, merlot smoulder. Tsk-tsk,
suckteeth, eyeroll, spread-legged—feral realist:
the muse on the Staten Island ferry drinking
a forty. A white girl’s manifesto begins: I can’t even.
Dog days, young love—gut-punched, wornout mystic.
Putrid midnight, skylines, bloodlines—inside,
she holds a sinkhole, an orchid. The feminist-
approved odalisque—she gives the world the cold
shoulder. This place is trying to ruin her.
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