A
Public Theatre Called Subway
Closer
than desired to a stranger's breath,
beneath more murder headlines
and pressing elbows of the daily grind,
a few manage gulps of coffee black
in a balance between sleep and daily duty
while the ingenious ones
have timed their naps
to peak before the open doors.
Others
perform the indifferent stare with a veteran method
finding a point of departure
when the blind beggar shakes his cup.
They're
all performance artists here
and some masters of maneuver never travel on their feet
with elaborate designs of movement
pre-planned in the waiting
as the platform becomes a conceptual lab
for experimental choreography
to forge ahead in the underground
of
mice, men, women
and other vermin.
It's a desperate rush of multi-cultural proportions,
a democratic passage through the bowels of the metropolis,
this public theatre called the subway.
