On the E Train a woman yawns and then a woman yawns
and yawns spawn around the crowded car
and many mouths dilate, many lungs swell.
I yawn myself and gawk into another open throat, its uvula waving.
I yawn again and watch as heads slump forward in a heedless doze.
A druggie sleeps on his feet right next to me.
His hand, aloft, grabs on to only air.
He tilts and sways in the harness of his trance and is held; he does not fall.
At 53rd and Lex, I summon an atom of vim and exit the car
with others like me, hundreds of other people,
merging in procession, going off to work.
Two by two, on a machinery of looping steps, we ascend, very slowly,
out of the underworld, into the upperworld, toward the arousing light.
Our deadpan eyes roll up in that direction.
We fill ourselves with one last Lethe-gulping yawn.
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