Red Eye turns to Blue

I met a dreamer in Union Station

painting portraits with his toes

for spare change.

He has a private audition for the part

of Jean Valjean

on Broadway

Next week.

 The Metro train comes caterwauling

down the trackline with lights blaring

while kids in power ranger costumes

usher me back,

rescue me from imminent danger. 

One tells me he’ll be a real superhero someday.

A cop like his daddy,

same mustache too. 

The posh lady on the recording tells me to 

“Allow customers to exit” but 

rebel that I am,

I push inside to where the sticky orange seats

reek of twenty or thirty years’ brown-green grime,

the kind that sticks to library books

left to rot too long. 

I pop in my earbuds and fall asleep against the cool window on my way home.