She sat on the balcony every night
for the next three days,
smoking and drinking
black coffee
until the darkness gave way to the
uncertain
light of morning

Her thin hands
trembled,
held the mug,
cradled as a precious fragment
of intimacy
amid her fitful isolation

The sky flickered across
in alien hues,
she chewed her lips worriedly
the cigarettes were stained red
a metallic taste thickened
against her tongue

The low rumble of the subway
begins as early as five a.m.
beneath the streets
a great and terrible beast
is stirred from slumber

The people spill into the streets,
and the beast sighs and goes back to sleep.