Sun on my face and the train slips

into the tunnel. Dim reflection confronts.

Perhaps I am lacking in something substantial

like iron, or virtue. How easy it is to hurt

someone, how hard to face what comes after.

My face, strangely lit, in the bathroom

mirror. Surrounded by friends, I felt a queasy

aloneness, didn’t know whose lap to cry into.

Someone spat out an olive pit. Someone tore

streamers off the wall. I distorted

through the stemmed glass. Already exhausted

in this angular year, where I hover

like a stranger to my own life.

No resolution in any of it.