Life On The Train

As my melancholy continued, I looked to an old friend for solace.

  What I love about BB is, she’s always home.

   I took the local not being in any hurry, settling in a seat by the door so not to miss anything.

   Instantly I saw, despite the world’s problems, New Yorkers going on with their lives, the troopers we’ve always been.

   The car was pretty filled though there were still plenty of seats.

   A woman in a navy suit with pretty hands stood reading the Wall Street Journal, while another lady in a Burberry trench, read over her shoulder.

  Were they together? Or was Burberry a serial reader like me seizing an opportunity?

  Across from them stood a young man in a Barbour with the collar up plugged into earphones tapping his left foot lightly.

  I asked him what he was listening to. “Jazz,” he said, grinning.

  Since the seats weren’t all occupied you wondered why the three of them chose to stand.

  My eyes then moseyed to a mom with a baby who was clearly breast feeding beneath a pale pink cotton wrapper, sitting  contentedly cuddling her cub.

  Next to her was an older woman in a modest brown parka who would occasionally turn and smile, perhaps remembering a time when she too suckled her young.

  There was something peaceful about them proving war or no war, a country falling apart or not, nature still carries on regardless.

  As the number 6 snaked downtown like a cobra in a conductor’s cap, the mood of the car mellowed me, so when I got off at my friend’s stop, was already more myself.

When I climbed the ramp met by her cables welcoming me with outstretched arms, I saw BB’s neighbor, Liberty, waving.

 I smiled warmly walking across her to the Brooklyn side, hugging her two towers, like kids made of limestone…along the way. 

SB