the R train in august

My lady Red lay across the warm iron rails
chest seized in a breath
the hull of her lungs moving slow in.
Out.
A low hum in her ears gave way
to a voice:
‘Have it in you to give with grace?’
There
above her: ‘Have it in you?’
The voice an old man’s
gaze falling to Red’s
shadow spread wide and fat where limbs lay mangled
across the tracks
The old man’s shirt rotten with bile Pants,
marked with sweat urine feces, stench spilt
over the platform edge
as tracks pulsed like marvelous thunder
marvelously
‘Angel,’ The old man
rasps tongue bloated and
words a solace yet words
and pockets pay nothing where
Red’s mauled body is a portrait
for all to see
across the subway rails
Her shattered elbow trickles a
flight path Crimson bees down the line
of her body
swelling over belly
He floats down The old man
and takes
a red hand in his
cradling it there
the coast of his palm
Have I reached my history’s end? Red asks
The old man looks at her
his eyes God’s black
saying Hush child he says
Forty seconds to grace
She looks up at him
On arms
little craters where nails were
skin pink
as though all that red couldn’t decide
whether to run away or flood in Red
On eyes
hurtling off the coast of neptune
dwindling together, Twin stars
shooting across the dark