A man
chews
his thumb-
nail on a train
flicking through
the script in his hands
far too fast, he takes
in only his own lines
turning down corners and
scanning, pencil-in-hand
he appears impatient, perhaps his
music isn’t fast enough; he
changes tracks. Background papers
spread about him, cross-referencing
is fast and furious. He builds people
from type-written characters, animates
one writer’s vision. (That’s all
I am). He gives up the seat
beside him to a smiling surfer
with a cell phone. He stares across
the aisle and out of the
window. “The fake sound of progress”
screams mutedly from his earphones.

A man chews his thumbnail on a train,
and thinks: make your
own world,
kid, this one’s just
a dead-
end
soap opera.