Once More for Love on the T

There are old subway tickets taped
to my refrigerator. One still holds
three trips’ fare left over from a visit
with you. I think of all the time
holed up there, all that steeled
thundering I will never hear
in the minutes between stops.
In the window above
the sink, the sky darkens, sparks,
offers a dry, wandering cough.
The kitchen feels like a room
in which everyone shifts restless
in their seats at the same time:
hundreds of pairs of jeans
on cloth chairs, whispering
something I can’t make out.

Anne Charlton is a third-year MFA student in poetry at Vanderbilt University, where she serves as the Curb Center Creative Writing Fellow. She writes about literature and pop culture at Mic. She graduated from Purdue University with a BA in English and Creative Writing in 2012. Her work appears in Still: the Journal, Yemassee, Toad the Journal and elsewhere.