Street Car Commute

The Woman wearing long flowing layers of cloth
drags two large bags and a long pole up the steps.
She nods to the driver, but does not appear to pay.
She lifts her face - large, round and weathered,
forms a wry nearly toothless smile, and sings.

She sings a Mohawk song, then Bob Dylan. She
 changes songs mid-beat, without pausing
 and gyrates against the poles and tips
forward toward a man in a tight fitting dress coat
who leans away from her toward his - wife, maybe.

The Singer leans into his discomfort and winks, as if his
cringe is a sign of  connection, as if the push
of his ass, which is  slipping toward the edge
of the seat as his head tucks further toward the window
and toward the woman, whose face presses against
the glass now - is a form of invitation. Come hither and horrify us.  Here. more.

There are other people on the streetcar.
They are jealous.  She can tell by the way their heads
turn, and they lick and curl their lips like dogs when they are hungry, or porrn stars trying to entice or people when they are terribly, terribly uncomfortable. Her lips twitch as she surveys the car. She  turns her attention back to her 
couple.

The Woman has brought them together, this mash of people,  but commuters are difficult to educate. The impact will be temporary. The dance will be forgotten.
She can tell by the way the woman avoids her eyes  -
her cheek flat on the window - she is afraid of women . Afraid of  beauty. She does not  dance. The Dancer dances now, her parcels at her feet, the 8 foot wand propped menacingly against the seat, where the couple curl.

Dancer  is ripe with the smells of smoke and alcohol and something else that nobody will ever be able to identify because they. will. not. ask. The woman with her face pressed against the window - chances are - she doesn’t dance.in the vague between of sanity and insanity, and doesn’t visit sounds she can’t identify, and doesn’t like sex, not really.  Not with tongues.

The Woman smiles. “Poor you,” she says. They understand each other. Someone else, a young woman in glasses reading a Kindle, licks her lips. The dancer smirks. “No thanks,” she says. The woman blanches. Wow, the dancer  thinks. yes, wow. this place is wild. She gyrates and sings and watches the people shift and move around her. She is the centre of everything, and she is the only one who’s really here. 

And I am commuting.