Outbound

The timing signs on the subway platforms
have become piratical and obscure
over long seasons of
reshiftings I did not notice

The train is arriving and
we hobble clumped to board
as the signs call out abbreviated
ARR and BRD until
I can hear the theatrical accents
absurd and ahistorical and
the parrots do not approve

There are no uniforms here and
I do not know our destination for
the signs over the doors have gone dark
but the engineer’s eyepatch has promises
that at first I did not notice
and his parrot may yet approve