Poem – Strangers Waiting For 2 Different Trains (By Frank De Canio)

Strangers Waiting For 2 Different Trains  

We both spent hours waiting on the line
for a ticket to Shakespeare in the Park.
I saw her on the blades of grass, supine
while I stood up behind her on a lark
I’d talk to her. “What’s the play about,”
she asked, before I knelt on down beside
her to explain, ‘The Tempest’, and to tout
its virtues. In this way we would ride the tide
of conversation – where we lived and worked –
up to the marble benches to await
the final call for tickets. Fears that lurked
within us proved correct. It was our fate
to leave disconsolate. But still a pair
who, in the subway station, would forswear

our bond. I felt we both were on death row,
with each deliberating who’d go first.
Is she who suffers most the last to go?
The fate of him preceding her is worst.
For he’s the one compelled to make a choice
and indirectly tie the hangman’s noose.
The other one just heeds the fateful voice
of someone who administers abuse.
I wish it had been she who took the train
that sped off into anonymity,
obliging me to bear love’s lesser pain
of dealing with implacability.
Instead, I feel remorse up to the hilt
that I left her to bear survivor’s guilt.

 

Author Bio: Frank De Canio

I was born & bred in New Jersey, work in New York. I love music of all kinds, from Bach to Dory Previn, Amy Beach to Amy Winehouse, World Music, Latin, opera. Shakespeare is my consolation, writing my hobby. I like Dylan Thomas, Keats, Wallace Stevens, Frost , Ginsburg, and Sylvia Plath.