Did you hear the one about the rat?

Missing the subway and all of you...

I saw this New Yorker cartoon earlier this week and it made me laugh almost as much as it made me want to cry.

No, I don’t miss the rats, nor do I miss the drudgery of my commute, but I do miss the people watching, the weird things I saw each and every day, and the routine quiet (and sometimes not so quiet) time I got to spend with myself and my thoughts nearly every day. I began missing it exactly one month into working from home.

That’s what inspired this poem I am working on, which I asked Ben to record so you could hear it or read, as you prefer. Nice to have a soundman (and a sound man) in the house. You can listen here.

Commuting

the A Train,

my comfy seat squeezed in the corner, a red

and yellow patchwork of plastic;

my basket of umbrellas, overflowing

tangled limbs that I pruned into a pile around 

the entryway of our apartment in anticipation 

of the next walk home in a storm;

Penn Station when I used 

to commute into the city from New Jersey. Men

with briefcases, some wearing backpacks, all designed 

to let them move faster, carry their 

belongings to and from their big houses to tiny cubicles 

Women wearing running 

shoes and pantyhose, heels

hidden away in a tote to put on quickly 

in the lobby of their office before 

stuffing sneakers under their desks;

the drive down the West Side Highway 

in the backseat of a black car

Watching the buildings grow as I descended 

Northern Manhattan into the thick 

whir of this metropolis;

my cousin from Argentina after 

we escaped the heat of the subway platform 

walked through the breezy and open sky, 

the park at the top of the hill, 

foot of my home,

“I understand why you live here, 

it’s shangri-la;”

churros sold at the 14th Street station

Fingers sticky from the sugar celebration 

of fried dough. I wonder where those small, 

indigenous women are today;

that time I fell 

asleep on the D

from Houston 

going the wrong way until 

I woke up deep in Brooklyn, 

just a few months 

before I decided 

to move to the city forever;

West 103rd and my walk 

to the subway along Broadway, the woman 

who pushed her baby carriage 

and dog toward me as she walked on the wrong 

side of the sidewalk, the sound 

of my umbrella clanging against hers 

after she called me a fat bitch;

the black men singing on the long 

ride ride between 125 and Columbus Circle, 

harmonizing “Stand By Me,” as they made 

their way down the car;

the lights flickering dark 

on the subway and me straining 

to read the last page of my book;

discovering the cause of the alarm 

going off in the car, the sharp key 

never identified, but snuffed out with a casual 

tap from my fingers on the metal box 

over the conductor’s room. 

everyone’s eyes on my back, 

then a collective sigh of relief;

waiting at Dyckman for a train to leave 

207 to make room for us. So little 

cell service and me repeatedly tapping 

airplane mode to try to reset my phone, 

like the impotent pressing 

of a call button for an elevator. 

Where were we all going?

PS The cartoonist who drew the rat cartoon above also drew me many years ago. Thank you, Liza. I can’t wait until we are all able to meet again.

PPS Ben and I recorded a special corporate music version of my poem, in honor of all those commuters who can’t wait to get back to their tiny cubicles. I solute you, subway warriors.