Читать книгу Confessions of a Barefaced Woman - Allison Joseph - Страница 7

It was comic on Seinfeld: Jerry looks up to see a naked man

across the aisle, an unfolded New York Times placed

strategically over his lower girth. They trade insults

and fat jokes, banter like Abbott and Costello by episode’s end.

But it isn’t funny on the number six train

when I look up from my chem book, see a man

across the aisle both clothed and exposed,

his pants held up by rope, dirt clumped in his matted hair,

long body sprawled out, limbs splayed, head wobbling.

He wears a tattered jacket, sleeves too short for his arms,

no shirt beneath, fly open, revealing bare skin, a limp penis.

He nods and wakes, rocking to the subway car’s motion,

and I fear if I rise, go one car over, I will rouse him,

and he will follow. No one here but us, no other passengers

clutch metal poles or lean against the walls as the train

hurtles further into the Bronx. They’ve long since

noticed his smell, this man whose shoes flap loose,

his brown skin deadly grey, eyes bloodshot and raw.

I’m silent as he sways, tugs on the rope around his waist,

turning my head away from the thought

of what he might move, how he might reach across

this chugging car. I don’t stir, put my textbook

in front of my face, hope that because he’s black

and I’m black that he won’t hurt me.

I am one stop from my stop, but when the train

reaches Parkchester, I dart through the closing doors,

knowing I’m too far from home to walk.