Der Trauerautomat

in the subway… returning to the underground

Screaming the subway car halts

I get on and glance aside at the collection of fellow

Humans like me- all going… somewhere.

I register all ages, colors, citizens from everywhere —

each searching for his own universe of meaning

Or non-meaning in the case of the lost soul huddled in the corner.

We pass another train and for one moment, I glimpse

A woman staring out her window at the inky blackness

We are all here, together, at this point in time-

Not knowing one another, not knowing well, frankly anything.

How is it that we converge for an instant on this earth?

Yet glide by without seeing or knowing one another or anything

Other than the staccato questions in our head, the clickety click

of time irrevocably moving forward

through that inky tunnel.

*A trauerautomatic [a mourning machine] dispenses items that people might need while at a burial in a cemetery, tissues, rosaries, etc. See https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/der-trauerautomat