When MTA workers speak
they speak too loud
my father says
because of all the noise
nights when storms break
onto the city and the city talks back
above ground
across turnstiles
through sidewalk grates
underground
they gesture and
clangaclack
and
thunder and
my father once clattercrash
once one of them
once swallowed spoke with the mouth of a storm
but now no words for the dead
my father saying has something else to say
about all of the all of this
but his voice
now a fast wind
through a shaft
his fists
blind hail
on the tunnel walls
but when the train rolls in
it roars over even this this breeze bang bellow
like the whole goddamned sky
is tumbling down
from ErouFind more by Maya Phillips at the library
Copyright © 2019 Maya Phillips
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.