Thursday, September 17, 2009

Apartment 415 - Mirror, Mirror

You can identify your own flaws by scrutinizing strangers...

I watched a woman
      from across a platform
at the subway station...

Straightened dishwater-blonde hair
glimmering in the subterranean fluorescence;
          striking posture,
      a dancer's figure,
and a thrifty ensemble that bespoke good taste
in spite of budgetary constrictions.

She extricated a circular compact from her purse
the way people in films exhume a pack of cigarettes...
    Then, in a very deliberate fashion,
she removed a pill and swallowed it.

              Birth control is like receiving a governor's pardon
          in the process of planning a crime.
              I resent this woman for that kind of indemnity.

I don't even know her.

Strange, how the mind can pass judgment
on assumptions of character.

It's easy to feel high
on the blissful soapbox of bigotry;

As that pill crested the ridges of her teeth
and met the soft tissue of her tongue, then esophagus,
my mind conjured a phantasmagoria of lewd images
on the surrounding subway walls.

          Sadly,
that's more of a reflection of my character
              than hers.

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