A teenage boy quietly pisses on Canal Street
Station’s columned steel. He’s ducked out

of the train and means to hold the door
with a sandaled foot, knees bent softly

and head turned away from the friends
who gawk and laugh, shouting their

lovely glee to whomever will join them
in hoping for the doors to close, their friend

to be left. And what of the post, the tepid green
a remnant of tastes outgrown? So many years on,

can it be made to surrender a greater sense
of some unseen thing, some scrap of fancy

left by the boy who grins, zips up,
and climbs aboard?