Irene Han Train Ride

Irene Han ____________________________________

A beginning is also an end. / An end is also a beginning.

On the F, the woman sitting / across from me is wearing heavy

sunglasses. 10:30 might still be early / for some people. It’s the glare of these

metallic cars, harsher than natural sunlight. / When she takes them off, she has a black

eye. The movie The Long Goodbye comes / to mind, how waves of the ocean drown

out their voices in Malibu. Nina, brushing / her blond hair aside, shows us her bruises:

“It doesn’t look like you walked into / a door.” On the wall, the last few lines of

a poem: And at dawn, waking… The / subway blaring, I step out into the light.