Sometimes Even a Recording Gets Tired
By Alyce Wilson

The train runs screaming
into the guts of the city and
I DON’T WANT TO GO.

Ghostly shrieks in the
tunnel - gut pulsing
machine screams. And
the calm flat
female voice of the train
announcing
the stops.

I like it when she
messes up. I like
it when she stutters and gets
things wrong. Once
she announced two
different stops at once.
Once she said them
backwards. In
Portugese.

Sometimes I think
about a photo I saw
once, of office people
sitting in rows, packed on a train,
all with blue hair.

I fall asleep to the lull
of the recording’s
call, and sleep till 15th
when I wake up
with body shock. Once
I overslept two stops
and marvelled at the
new view. Why not just
keep going, I
thought. But got back on.

I love the great
steaming wreck of
this city. The woman
in her short skirt who
asked if I was all right
when I was crying.