Lost and Found on the B Train in Winter

 

B Here Now

I first heard the rumble, felt the roar before I was born
in my Mother’s own cave, on her doctor’s way
I first saw the white porcelain straps, felt the frayed straw seats
smelled the wet drying wool before I was one year of age

Record snow the Christmas eve three months before my birth
then every month thereafter – I rode the rails in that womb
while dirt-crusted plowed snowdrifts piled to the sky
and were covered anew, freshened again

Bread factory aromas ran down from the street
the sugary candy factory ones too, the car would
rise and emerge into the light, a city-wide roller coaster ride
Coney Island began at the train platform edge

A distant cousin lived in an apartment above a store
the el curving just outside his window, near Ebbets Field
eyes wide at the gaps in the stairs, big enough I could fall through
my Father’s hand safely protecting the climb

First neck nuzzles and thigh grabs after ice skating in the city
in the car-end lone double seat, our semi-private room
midnight heads on shoulders, pretending to be tired
while our hands began their moves

I now dream of dark browns, grey and black shadows
dashing, darting through vertical steel pillars, deep in this cave
avoiding screeching blue-sparks from across third rails
my Mother holding our hands, safely leading the way

to my Father, waiting on the platform across and above