Rush Hour

Stepping off the congested platform we swell

into the car, becoming part of the early morning procession.

We shift and conform, bodies exchanging space

as shapes and colors fill each void like the sands of a kaleidoscope.

Heaving forward, gripping and gliding on steel and light

we stand intimately like lovers or conspirators,

sharing an anonymous touch.  We reflect distorted images

of mothers and daughters, husbands and wives.

Honored principles of personal space do not exist here.

We recycle and share stale, deficient air consuming

the exhaled breath of a stranger, so close

yet we strain to rest our eyes on anything but one another.

In this paradigm of disassociation we hide

behind reports of murder, sport and weather

and the rhythm of verse and chorus that cannot compete

with the penetrating sound of rail and speed.

We cling, we lean, moving together through a chasm of time,

connecting through conscious disconnection.

Accelerating through tunnels we advance toward destinations

that split our lives as jarring stops define our realities.

The fortunate sit like conquistadors upon plastic thrones

while the standing masses grip tarnished metal poles

imprinted with layers of smudged impressions,

the residue of our identities. 

Anne Fisher

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