for Ayako Shimura
I see a dim lucence skimming along the fringe
I see a dim lucence skimming along the fringe
of
the train-car, jostled along in
half dream,
the passengers huddle
in
enclosed-spaces encased
by
time’s passage, seeking some distances
that
spread before horizons, we slip
beneath
seats to find
some
respite
from
the world’s nightmare, as a shadowy mask
drops
like a stone, I see those dark-
featured
nymphs who’d lean into
grey-futures,
the tide rising in sub-
merged-stations,
where fish swim in windows, & on department store
walls
I read Seibu, the internal-malls,
&
a severe Korean carries
his
fan by the exit, perhaps he will move on
the
train was entering night, where
blue-phantoms
fed on memories
of
transience, & our thought drifted with the miles
on
the fabrics of eternity,
the
filament that slipped between
gaps
of fragmentary thoughts
floating
in the hours that swelled as
the
sea’s breathing, serene in
evenings
lit by gas-jets, lining
the
filmy membranes of our minds, & to come back
into
it, the dust of light’s residue
on
our fingers, & the slow-drip
of
the hours, when patience
was
nearly forgotten, & gradually
replaced
by a dumb-
endurance
that
wells from some unknown
place,
in the corner I see three dark-haired-girls
unsteady
in the car’s shifting,
&
time winds-down as one of which
arranges
the straps of her
sick-mask
across
her
pony-tail, in the shape
of
an X, as flashes of light glaze
the
windows, like distant
fireworks,
in the inaka,
on
the last day of summer
