Transport

Transport

The closest I’ve come to transcendence
was one morning on the train
to Chicago and an internship
that went nowhere,
as many do.
A column without substance, or beyond it,
encompassed me and—
I knew, as well, without proof—
greater heights and depths.
The column turned, switched tracks,
embraced rickety lengths of rail.
Within it Wall Street Journals,
now fan corals in a womb-warm reef,
waved to anyone who watched.
Watching, I was myself
and a bright fish in this water,
which was something else
that flowed from a silence
admitting of no name.
I might have pointed, if I could have
pointed in all directions at once
and back to the inside of my fingertips,
as if this essence needed my pointing.
The given morning spread before me
in all its fullness.
I scraped gum off my left loafer,
and I went to work.