Riding the Trains
A City
CTA card Transit Pass
Lonely Booth operators
Late-Night Commuters
Fresh Piss on a subway corner
Clattering cars bump and whine
Screeching trough each tunnel
Underground
Electric Blue sparks
A pale flicker on the old shantied projects.
Passed out drunk in the stairway
A man cuts his hands with a razor
Carves away the dead
Exposes the new
Shattered Old English Bottles
Malt liquor and bile on the floors
Lonesome and empty stations
Dully color coded, Black, White, Brown, Red, Yellow
Rusted Water pipes trickle down the concrete walls
A lifetime of garbage drowned in the
Electric piss
Puddles beneath the tracks