Coming home at night on the train
the billboards shout a little less
the women a little more
and the men are quieter.
I’m tired, and so is everyone reading the paper,
or napping, or staring at the boulevard,
which is just a wide street with empty trucks parked
against buildings with broken windows.
Necesito que me pague, I hear from the street.
Es difícil, the man next to me says into his cell phone.
I thought he was talking about his rent,
but then he chuckles, and lewdly.

Sometimes the train stops and the conductor
says something on the intercom, we don’t know what,
so we wait. No one moves.
Sometimes a car burns on the boulevard,
smoke rising like desire at night. It floats into the train.
The readers keep reading, the nappers keep napping.
Only the starers, the ones with empty eyes,
move their nostrils like hunters waking.