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Subway Musician

I saw her sitting in the subway
Next to a column
Wall-papered with advertisements.
She held an acoustic guitar,
And brushed her fingers against
The phosphor bronze strings,
And each note she plucked
Wrung clearly as a silver bell,
Or like one in a cathedral tower.

She sang her song to the spaces
Between the people
As they walked around her,
Deafened by their own busy lives
And the footsteps,
The conversations
Of others.

She was unaccompanied.
There was no drum beat,
Only the soft tapping thump of her heart—
Beating, beating, beating
Slow into the emptiness
Of the crowd consuming her.
It coupled with the clattering polyrhythms
The train created as it shook the track
Beneath its wheels,
All the while muffling her voice
As she tried to sing above it,
As she tried to strain her expression,
So it may be heard.

I saw her.
I watched her sing for someone that doesn't exist.
Someone that isn't real to anyone,
Except for her,
Though she knows she's lying to herself.
The aching breaks in her heart
Crack her voice in a way that the pain
Resonates from her chest,
Filling mine with a swell of longing.
At that moment,
That swell feels like a soul to me,
And I wish—
Oh, I wish—
She were singing to me.

She seems to know this feeling
That can't be explained in words,
That can't be articulated in sound,
That can't be understood
Until on feels it.
She seems to know how I am listening,
Lost inside the spell
Of her magic melodies,
And I would dream to harmonize
With the intimate tones
That she releases with passion,
But, the same as her,
I'm only writing my song,
And singing it here,
For someone who doesn't exist—
Not to anyone,
But me.

poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
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