CHANNELS
a color photograph of a blue tunnel lit by a line of fluorescent lights casting multiple ringed shadows down to the distant exit
Issue 4 Summer 2021, Poetry, Poetry 4.0

Rapid Transit

July 25, 2021 | by

RAPID TRANSIT

 

Strangers packed in love seats
dull metal bars covered in stolen
lives to grip overhead
station names bear new font but
chalk outlines still flicker
doors burst open for quick explorers
blood scrubbed away by midday
crew mixed in with dust particles
cities float by through murky windows
pit stops follow all compass ends
uniforms facilitate mugshots beaming
across newsroom segments paranoia
growing during trips to campus
return home after work cut short
trained to see things differently
eyes bounce off ads for colleges
many will never get to attend
change the channel as if that will blow
out vigil candles decorating street corners
black and brown mix with the waning moon
this sky crawls through corridors
spilling onto platforms

a color photograph of a blue tunnel lit by a line of fluorescent lights casting multiple ringed shadows down to the distant exit

Mitchell Luo via Unsplash

REBECCA SAMUELSON

 

Rebecca Samuelson is a Bay Area poet from Hayward, California. She writes from the intersection of caretaking and grief. She was the 2017–18 Saint Mary’s Fellow at Kearny Street Workshop and Assistant Poetry Editor of her graduate school literary journal. She received her MFA in creative writing, with a concentration in poetry, from Saint Mary’s College of California. She received a BA in English, with a concentration in creative writing, from San Francisco State University. Her work can be found at rebecca-samuelson.com.