on the subway platform

I only realize I’m late when I notice that the woman with Medusa’s curls isn’t here. People as units of measure. The clock of the world.

near the university

The snow has just stopped falling and everything glitters in the darkness. Behind me someone is singing, she sings a little off key but everyone knows the song anyway: “a beautiful sight…we’re happy tooonight…walkin’ in a winter wonderland.” A few passersby from the other direction smile. I turn around. There’s a woman in a parka, she’s maybe fifty, or she has smoked all her life and is younger than that. She’s got her arm hooked into the elbow of a man in a hoodie, she’s leaning in tight, smiling like a child caught sneaking something small but illicit. She catches my eye. “It’s a good song,” I say as they pass me by. She laughs and laughs and I stay still and listen to her until they round the corner and drift away.

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at home

A woman in a window across the street is cleaning house in her underwear.

on the street

It’s morning and the light filters through the diminishing leaves. People have their heads down, watching the sidewalk as they move along beaten paths to the day ahead. Across the street I see a woman, I think she is someone I haven’t seen in fifteen years. Then I get a little closer. It’s not her at all. It was just the way she kept tucking her hair behind her ear.

in the projects

I’m walking home at dusk, feeling sour about the inexorable shortening of the day. There are two big women on a bench, a third standing before them leaning into her speech like a preacher. “We’re Christians,” she says. “We’re not supposed to wear jeans.”

in midtown

It’s cold. People are starting to huddle their shoulders inward against the chill. I sit down on a bench next to a woman with her legs stretched out and her thin ankles crossed. She’s wearing flat red sandals. She sees me looking at them. “Not giving in yet,” I say. “Nope,” she says. “I’m the last man standing.”