There is poetry in strangers
There, for instance, that brown hat
Hanging head down felt a life clinging

Leathery fresh rubbing the train’s inners
Feebly taking a nap verging on arrival
of indigo sleep interrupted by harsh white

Time to rise arriving rails to a halt
raises eyebrows and eyelids and legs
wiping that hint of saliva from the right corner

Our eyes cross and an insinuation of doubt
could there be love is quickly whisked away
by the realism of checking the non forgotten:

I do not know you. Goodbye by averting eyes.
There is poetry in strangers
pedestrian but poetry nonetheless.

—animasuri’22