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Commuter
Hell
by
Lee Passarella
She
had come to that
state where the
horror of the
universe and its
smallness are
both visible at
the same time…
—A
Passage to India
A
stew of sky has
choked the 19th
floor;
the
town clock boiled
to ochre, a dying
sun.
Drawn
through the day’s
last maze at half-past
four,
you
bound from shock
to shock until…you’re
done
with
lab-rat patience.
Gloomily, you
note
the seedy architectural
collage,
the urban cut-and-paste,
abandon hope
for more sublimity
than lurks in
hodge-
podge
enclaves where
our helter-skelter
lives
just
map behaviorists’
old sweet/sour
ploy—
“avoidance
and approach,”
in psycho-jive—
the
gauntlet run for
paychecks and
the joy
of
schoolboy freedom,
as you thread
the gray-
ing
streets to reach
the light at the
end of day.
©
2007 by Lee Passarella
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