for Kathryn

Stefano in weekday chinos
waits for the first of three trains
to Queens after a day in an field of work
deemed dying or dead & his partner’s at home
cooking better Italian than Stefano’s own Italian
mother & the train is late & there’s a rat a minute on the tracks
& tomorrow’s not even close to Friday & it’s bloody hot or freezing
in the blue-black tunnel of steel & epiglottal noise & poise appears unfeasible
& everyone around is pissed off or pissing indiscreetly.
And as for the pleasures of the flesh,

you’ll have to forgive me: they remain
unsullied in that midnight slab of brain, where you
and I restrain nothing but the urge to dance, and not even that.
Stefano performs his dance. He taps atop the subway’s thickset platform. And the noise
is like cutlery confessing to cement. And the train
arrives fast, opening all its silver doors
at once.