Transcribed from journal; 6 October
On the El. The train. Meeting people 30 minutes away. (30 minutes of city). Can I call them friends yet? * * *
The train is not full. It is 'express' going Downtown. The Loop. Passing next to public housing, mixed income areas, strained class battles. They pass by as pictures, fast and unreal. The trees are starting to turn. They shed on porches and windows close to the tracks. Framed by dirty deep brown brick. Boarded up windows like empty eye sockets. Tenements? Poverty? Gentrification? Home to someone.
On the train they fly past unnoticed, close but miles away by glass panes and electric currents and speed. The old woman asks for help navigating the stops and finishes her crossword.
She has to wake the other woman up to get directions. Most people sleep, or pretend to.
On the train they fly past unnoticed, close but miles away by glass panes and electric currents and speed. The old woman asks for help navigating the stops and finishes her crossword.
She has to wake the other woman up to get directions. Most people sleep, or pretend to.
* * *
On the other side of the graveyard wall, past the barbed wire and stone and sanctified ground, two men sleep in a parking lot. Blankets make up their camp, hung on shopping carts and under their heads. They guard black plastic bags filled with anything. The dead sleep on the other side of the barbed wire, safe; the men sleep on their blankets. The train doesn't stop: it's express.
* * *
The spider web on the stoplight, the things you see from these elevated tracks.
posted by Christolf @ 2:31:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home