the hearty hybrid

Oh to be purebred and fine, lineless and shiny
Perfectly rounded and unmoved by mundanity
Untroubled and controlled, within bounds.
To only grow weary at the novelty of it all, 
I wouldn't know.
I wait quietly for my season.
I grow ridges and grooves
And I fold thyself into myself
As I wait patiently for tomorrow.

The Northeast Corridor

There are a whole bunch of talkers on this train, it’s only been an hour, only nine am and yet everyone’s got so much to say.  

To be fair, I have things to say too, but I only want to talk to you.  I have no interest in the woman behind me who works in hospital admin, in the billing department.  I am mildly interested in the two gentlemen behind me who are talking like they are on Law and Order- “We’ve got a huge problem in Afghanastan- the poppy farmers and all the ancillary issues…this place was hopping after WWII, baby.  Remmington Arms, the whole nine…they’ll cut your nuts off…altoids, that’s my plan to cut back on smoking.” 

I keep thinking about this perfect moment, this moment that we had on Friday night, that sums up our whole connection.  There’s you, and there’s me and I am in you and we’re talking and I’m in you and we’re having a heart to heart and we’re not talking about sex, we’re talking about life and us and it’s everything.  With you, everything is related and I love that.  You connect me to you and the world is there too and you’re not scared of a life like that.

I’m passing through Bridgeport, CT.  This place looks like a pit.  We just passed some dinosaur graffiti.  Here’s a marina with a bunch of yachts, here’s a brown field full of detritus and my favorite, old mattresses.  Matresses used to be made out of crazy fabrics, they each had their own flair.  Psychedelic mattresses in blue and orange florals from the seventies, blue ticking stripes from the fifties, baby blue brocades circa 1984.  Who slept on those mattresses, and why are they abandoned on the side of the train tracks now?  What is the story? 

Next to me sits a short, polite and slightly interested in me man.  He’s got a jewy look, he’s clean cut and smilely and clearly wants to talk to me.  I am sure that he is circumcised.  His father runs a large practice of cardiologists.  He’s a doctor too.  I’m too tall for him.  And probably too nasty.  Today, if you could see me, I look like a respectable young woman.  A woman, several rows back, has been laughing like a hyenia for basically the whole time.  In about an hour, I am sure that I will start having empassioned fantasies about physically harming her.  My fantasies will all center around a pivotal and dramatic line, when I ask her, “Who’s laughing now, bitch?”  It’s New Haven.