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