By Tamara Olmedo
“Next Stop Intervale Avenue”
The garbled voice echoes over bodies
Like stuffed sardines in a hot metal tin.
I ignore the tagged-up windows of the 2 train,
and refuse to lift my eyes from the pages of a limp
book between my sweaty palms.
A glimpse of maroon steals my focus.
I tell myself my mind is playing tricks;
Logic doesn’t stop my hand from gripping
the cold metal of a cross tucked beneath the neck of my hoodie.
“Dios dame fuerza”
I urge the train to screech along
and take with it the phantom salsa jams
once blasted out of the speakers
hidden under a sea of Pa’s wrenches and screwdrivers.
I beg the train to banish the sickly-sweet smell
of industrial strength soap and oil,
plead for the ear-splitting squeal of metal
to erase any reminder of his knobby fingers.
I brave the view and find nothing,
voided space where the shop used to be,
where Pa used to be;
now is a block metal and concrete.
I remember the man who was the sound of the sea,
the roar of an engine,
the taste of freedom embedded in the threads
of an old maroon shirt;
His name stitched above the breast pocket.
The way its crude itchy fabric rubs against the bottom
of a dresser drawer,
collecting the musk of worn wood with every open and shut.
Shirt and man pushed to the deepest corner.
My lungs pause because
I know sitting there on the train,
as it speeds past Pa’s old stop on the BX bound 2,
there isn’t enough faith left in the simple act of breathing.
What else will escape between breaths in his absence?
