There is a heartbeat under this pavement,
a metallic rhythm, alive with urgency,
carried on the backs of weary travelers,
who shuffle like dreams drifting half-formed.
The subway station breathes echoes, sighs,
each exhalation filled with muffled footsteps,
names of destinations whispered like prayers,
Brooklyn, Queens, the promise of something else.
Faces hold maps of places they’ve been,
creased foreheads folding into morning news,
eyes tracing timelines of missed appointments,
or tracing the patterns in tiled mosaics.
A violinist plants music into the gloom,
notes climbing up the lurching escalators,
and for one fleeting moment, strangers pause—
as if melody could stretch a single second.
The train roars through its concrete artery,
a silver beast swallowing stories whole,
and spitting them out a few stops later,
the air crackling with fragmented goodbyes.
Outside, the city stirs in furious purpose,
but down here, time kneels, gathering itself.
We hold onto rails, let gravity sway us,
the pulse beneath the city guiding us home.