Blame it on poor camera-work.

The first train back upstate
was a bust; the alarm clock
decided to die the one time
I needed it and Grand Central
was too far to make it in ten
minutes, even by cab.
I took my time getting ready
and made the 9:47 instead
which had changed to the 9:52
since I'd checked the schedule
on the previous day. Metro North
has that luxury. The cars
were still mostly empty half an hour
before the departure so I had options
in the seat-picking process.
In lieu of taking one on the east side
of the track I went for the spacious
three-seater on the right. Let the fools
have their river view, I've fallen for
that trick enough times already.
The books are better anyway.
I'd be switching between the stories
of John Updike and a book on
the Spanish Civil War.
I've learned to go the whole trip
without looking up from the pages once.

But on this trek something changed.
A sudden jerk by the conductor
jostled me enough to warrant an upward
glance from the trusty words of Mr. Updike.
We were under a bridge in Westchester somewhere.
A makeshift bed was sprawled out next to a pillar
blankets and shopping bags covering
a tattered mattress that became another man's treasure.
Its owner wasn't present, probably off foraging somewhere.
It's appalling how many people live under the bridge
in the most literal sense in a nation that's so quick
to send foreign aid and fight others' battles.
Mao suggested that we "Civilize the mind
but make savage the body." It seems
somewhere along the way the two got confused.
The angel Azrael comes for all of us eventually.
Those bridgemen don't fear Death, though; it's St. Peter
who'll be fumbling for words.

I went back to my short stories for the rest
of the way north. My stepfather was waiting for me
at the Beacon station. The Spanish Civil War
was an effective topic to curtail the awkward silence
in the car ride to my house where a day of cleaning laid in wait.
He's a history buff. I tried to explain the
Abraham Lincoln Brigade and how Hemingway
was one of the American volunteers who fought
against Franco and fascism, but it he didn't get it.
Maybe I'll lend him the book when I'm done. Maybe not.

If I'd made the 8:47 the bridgeman still would've been in bed.
It's a good thing I was late.