[Newspoetry] today in the news

[Danielle Chynoweth]

On the train, everyone stinks of mistrust and indifference.  Eyes slyly
search each other but never meet.  In this city, looking somone in the eye
is as intimate as touching them.  And intimacy is dangerous.  That is why
people steal information.  The red of a coat.  The twistedness of a leg. 
The cut of stitched black plastic around a full breast. People draw this
information to them, like overloaded shopping bags, but they keep their
faces clamped shut like a tight-fitting lid on a box. 

A young boy, 3 or 4 years old, wobbles on the train with his shaky fat
toddler legs--pulling away from his mother. As the train lurches forward
and the boy stumbles backward, all the shut faces open wide and the boy is
caught by a dozen extended hands.

--danielle