a thread

his olive suit shows a thread come loose, buttons sewn cheaply. his lapels curl

with a double-breasted edge. my gaze feels vicious. his grey suit sits flat

with a woollen look. her thin-soled shoes are crumpling towards the point. her

mascara hangs heavy, she could be sleeping. I begin to understand the huge

shelf of magazines at the station, the irritation of over the shoulder reading.



air

when I step on the carriage the air is thick with more than the usual smell of

dark tunnels. there is a coiling around the air. sit and wait for it to spring.

then it begins. she starts to sing, loudly with no joy. I have caught myself

humming to my walkman at times and suppressed my ticking fingers. but she

is singing, just call me angel of the morning. the stare of the passenger

continues from every face, a blank. the air stiffens with the noise of her

rough tone in the shake of the train.



the window

the water shows in a glimpse through rose bay’s greenery and then the

gallery’s elegance. I want to find domesticity in the close windows of the

nearby houses in this short passage through open air. the grey house is

promising. today the curtains are different. there is no seeing through the

freshly painted walls, a humming icy fridge, a white bed billowing with muslin,

a metal sculpture. someone stands, and writes, and goes to the fridge and

considers, and sits to face away from the rail line close to the window. back

into the tunnel with a rattle.



a short distance

water pours down the glass door at the end of the carriage. the small space

of light before the next dark enclosure shines with the wet colour of

rainbreak, and heavy green plants are climbing the tunnel’s shoulder. this is

a sight to contemplate but the rushing archway makes it a glimpse. through

and out again, the park is damp grass and a mist has covered all the taller

buildings. my ankles know the cold I will feel when I step out into it, the

street’s puddles shining in the hardened early light. the greyness stretches

across the close sky, no sight past the next block. the sky is a wide cloud of

fog as low as the ground in the short distance.