Of Rapid Transit, Mortals, Miracles
It's 8:23 a.m. and the same three large women (my Fates)
sit across from me on Bay Area Rapid Transit and tweeze surprised brows.
They conduct their business with lipstick and mascara wand
and at Embarcadero, zip, click, and get off.
The train descends into Hades-under-Bay
and rises where Trojan horse gantry cranes
steel their faces toward Oakland Harbor. But we're done
with mythopoeia; now BART tunnels on to my stop
-- 12th street, downtown Oakland.
I'm waiting for the Number 12 bus to Alameda.
The day is light-hearted, breezy.
A God salesman in red sports cap lifts his hands,
and the Tribune tower chimes nine times.
A big man, with bandaged foot, booms basso profundo
Hello beautiful! -- and so the day begins.
Faxes, e-mails, marketing messages:
we are committed to our customers' competitiveness!
On a ledge outside the meeting a pigeon struts
to impress another pigeon,
mounts her, then dismounts --
in less time than it takes to tell.
Don't you wonder
that every day, people get up at ringing alarms,
wash in water warm as the womb;
they iron blouses, pack lunches...
Glue holds, seams stretch infinitely.
Children whose crayon dreams hung
on kitchen walls, grow up, cash paychecks, buy groceries.
They make car payments, park cars
neatly between parallel white lines.
Here, now, sparrows fly in and out the 4-inch vent pipe
of the elevator shaft -- another speckled egg in the nest.
Think of it.
and the 5:05 bus is here!
The air -- so sweet, a deep breath will get you drunk.
© 1998 Diane Kirsten-Martin