2

We furtive biographers enjoy nothing more than the occasional immobile subway car 

the goal being to size up your aisle counterpart

employing deep reading mixed with archaeology
always almost verging past the length of acceptable intrigue

It is this stage of object and voyeur forming shared complicit understanding 

across which faces can collapse timescales 

and cheeks and brows inverting individual seconds into uncanny eons
can condense 2 lifetimes into whispered passing moments

Each undetected watcher soon discovers that there is always something more to see

this feigned disinterest forms part of our generational life practice

this knowledge which is worn as both armor and wound

because when we stare, no one stares back

just glances, nervously

Subway liminality, in order:

Personal space.  Verge onto someone else's territory.

The gaze, from voyeurism to spectacle.

Balance and momentum.  Flexibility with forces.  An incorrectly timed grip results in fall, in failure.

Cars' lurching screeching halts as a violation of liminality that proves the rule.

Stand by an emptying car.  Feel it wobble back and forth beneath the weight of exiting passengers.

Bent trajectories.  Weaving between other moving people.

Stairs to the station.  Traverse the city's layers.  When are you above ground? Pinpoint the moment that you can see the surface but are still immersed in what's below.