Encased in metal, their bodies careened towards the city. The grinding, the metal on metal screeching, quieted their thoughts.

Head against glass, crowded and foggy, the mother in grey plots her scheme to the nearest bottle of liquor. The man with guilt in his eyes, clutches her hand and wonders when he can get away.

They coast past creeks of muck and cigarette butts. Two bodies on their way to the next hour.

The small girl sleeps on her mothers chest breathing foul ash from the air. Her father smokes with his hand behind a book and exhales sour remorse from his worn lungs.

The mother with heavy eyes, avoids wishful thinking. She has never relied
on luck, so she sits, encased in metal ignoring faces and avoiding eyes.

today,
while waiting for the 8th Avenue train
a woman with a straw hat and a shopping cart told me:
“Today is going to be a good day for you”
and for once,
in a long time,
I believed her
I believed I no longer had to sit alone with my thoughts in my Davisville apartment
I believed I could walk down 9th to 34th and 35th and 36th and not shatter into a million pieces
I believed I could finally find myself as a whole
and not pieces:
my upper lip on Queens Quay,
or my right elbow on King,
or my grafted skin on College
no,
here, I am one
I am everything that has happened to me
and everything that will happen
I can speak uncensored at the little ******* the train with a yellow sundress
I can leave my laughter echoing across Brooklyn
and my breath floating on my favourite rock in Central Park
I can pass people on Lexington and not break eye contact –
because I want them to look at me
I want them to see me, all of me
and all I am worth
because no one knows me here
and it is so exhilarating to know that they can know me
all of me,
uninhibited
not carrying ten or eleven or twelve bags’ worth of past anguish on all my limbs
they see me here
my soul is alive here
amidst the millions
for too long I have searched for a place of solace and strength
and if you had asked me three years ago if I loved it here
I would rip my hair to shreds and close my eyes and think of home,
Toronto,
but now
if you asked me:
where is home?
if you asked me:
where are you yourself?
if you asked me:
where are you the most happy?
light blue and yellow light streams across my face
and I breath a little easier
and I sit a little taller and I say:
New York City
because on hundred year old streets
clustered with thousands of strangers
surrounded by words from all over the world
I have found myself.

I fall in love everyday.
Either on the bus,
Or on the subway.

The man without legs
thinks he still has them,
for when he glances around
everyone else still does.
And when he ***** in his
share of breath,
its just as much as before.
Even when the clanking cup
in his hand begs,
to subway riders as cold
as the train floor,
he thinks not of his lost legs
but of all the loss.

We're on a train
in London's subways
and everyone stands
with a dead-eye peer
down the carriage, so
please, hold my hand.

They're all like apes,
hung on bamboo poles
and strung vine-straps,
hunkered over the small
space I have to myself, so
please, hold my hand.

I think you've become
just like them, Daddy;
a ringed-eyed orangutan
or narrow-staring lemur.
You've become much less
human it scares me, so
*please, let go of my hand.