Four Stops Past

The 14 goes both ways.

I know this.

I got on going the wrong direction

and didn't figure it out for four stops,

the neighborhood tilting through the window

the way a familiar word looks wrong

when you stare at it too long.

Across the aisle, a man was eating a sandwich.

Wax paper folded back just enough.

He chewed with the focused, careful speed

of someone eating where they shouldn't —

eyes on his phone, jaw working

in short, apologetic intervals.

I watched him and missed my stop.

Then the next one.

The dentist appointment I'd waited six weeks for

went off somewhere to the south

while I sat there watching him

refold the wax paper into a square

and press it flat against his knee.

He got off at Garfield.

I rode two more stops past that

thinking about nothing in particular.

Got off at the bridge.

Walked back in the rain

I hadn't brought a jacket for.

Which felt, if I'm honest,

correct.