DREAMS ARE EVERYONE YOU REMEMBER
After “Subway Faces” by Jay Milder
by Dana Blatte
but there are so many faces
on statues and mannequins and the people
poised in subway cars. Some ripen with color
like sickly fruit: red-painted lips,
umber shaded chins, blue
braided scalps smoothed onto eyeballs
like blown glass. Everyone is so busy.
So fragile. The rails keep shrieking,
tunnel light beading in the window.
In the corner, I have to map my face
to make sure I still exist. I watch
another girl and wonder if I could be her.
If I could wear her thin limbs,
her doe eyes, her fat lips.
When I look up again she is
another face. Someone else
who knows me from somewhere real.
The dream lasts until the train nears
its final stop. The lights flare and everyone pries
their faces off but I still can’t find mine.