Stumbling, she rights herself using the tap and pay reader,

and without paying, crawls into a seat near the exit,

exposing urine-soaked jeans wet in a V-shape from tail

to hamstring. Hair clumped, sweatshirt frayed,

for several stops she’s hibernating, eyes closed, nodding.
Then she animates, magics white wine from a shopping bag

and snaps open the lid – drinking with her head thrown back;

a heron swallowing fish. Now, she’s chatty,

accusing Chinese tourists in the priority seats of imagined

slights, cursing an absent father. The sun-glassed driver 
observes from a mirror, while those around me –

the tourists, the uni students, the market shoppers –

are resolute in their avoidance, heads locked to windows,

books or phone, so that when she starts hitting

them up for fifteen dollars for a refuge, she is shunned.
When it gets to my turn – You, she says – I don’t look away

because she is my age. My age. Oh god my age

and too old. Too old for blacked-out rape and broken jaws.

Too old for emergency wards. Our eyes fix, and I notice hers

are hazel: You might help me. Will you help me? she says 
so gently, it’s almost tender. Yes. I will. Yet as I search my bag

I don’t know if I can because who of us still holds anything

as tangible as cash?  She’s gone before I get a chance

to fail her – free-hand gripping the exit-rail,

one thong-covered toe testing the honesty of the pavement.