Bloor-Danforth

by D.S. Martin

How unusual to hear music   floating from
opening subway doors   as I’m swept in
with the few from the westbound platform  
to the late train   joining those
in their westbound seats   This high-wailing
is familiar to me   a lanky kid returning
to the suburbs   drawn to this orienting
sweetness   since harmonica is something
I’ve taught myself to play   & hearing  
this familiar hymn   feels like home  

I fall into a seat   facing across
the compartment   where the player cups
his hands around the sound   But there’s a dis-
connect   something wrong   as we’re carried
into darkness   the dissonant man playing
the melody   seems so remote from the music  
a soup-kitchen-song   with all hope leached
away   & when my words tentatively reach
his way   lewd laughter   spittle  
& a sickly smell   leap from his mouth  

I retreat from the encounter   tumbling
back into my seat   averting my eyes
from every possible stare   looking
down   then straight ahead   to where
something of myself stutters in the window  
I stumble on his stumbling    & sink deep  
deep   into myself    until the train leaps
into open night air   shaking & taking me
to where   I can look to distant light
& think   of unseen things above

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D.S. Martin is Poet-in-Residence at McMaster Divinity College, and Series Editor for the Poiema Poetry Series from Cascade Books. He has written five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021), Ampersand (2018), and Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis (2013). He and his wife live in Brampton, Ontario.