'Riding Backwards On A Train'

Riding backwards on a train
I found myself cold;
waking (almost) every hour.
I'd stuffed my hands into my pants pockets;
headphones blasting away.
It kept the world from coming in.
Well, everything but the fluorescent light.
Even with my eyes closed.

At various stops when I awoke:
stations, or shadows of stations,
droplets of rain streaking across windows,
the darkness of night;
these things greeted me (delicately).
Unlike the passengers who boarded,
they were neither
forgetful, chaotic, nor inconsiderate.

As worry tethers those who do
to the waking world,
I wondered: if she had slept well at all, that night.
(She didn't.)
My mother called in the morning
to ask if I had bathed, or will, soon
when along with a hundred others,
I left the underground.

( _")