“The Raiséd Eyebrow” (from Spleen, 3)

11.18.98

“I was so annoyed, I was like, ‘Ugh, this is so annoying’”

*

We all forced a smile onto her face

*

I give the blonde at the counter my order but immediately change my mind. Nevertheless, as if sensing this, she quickly scribbles it down and steps to the cook’s ticket wheel, clips it in place and whirls around smiling—“Would you like anything else?”—and practically all in one motion the wheel turns, the cook flicks the ticket with his finger and drops my meat sizzling onto the grill

*

The people coming onto the subway in the evening after work. Carrying with them their conversations, their dry cleaning, their dead moments and distances stuck to their eyes, projected into the blank spaces. In the morning, all they’d brought on board was the stunned silence of their dreams

*

Met an interesting pronoun tonight

11.19.98

“Fool’s Train”—the sound of the leaving train echoes back down the tunnel, and invariably at least a few waiting commuters are taken in by this, leaning forward to look

*

I appreciated the camaraderie implied by the train operator when he announced at each stop: “We’re going to Dublin-Pleasanton, this is a Dublin-Pleasanton train,” as though we had all discussed it beforehand and decided that’s where we all wanted to go

*

Can you lift the words off the page and look them into the landscape?

*

Gulls and pigeons, fattened on substance of tourist

11.20.98

After “bumping into” and then talking with J. for a while on the train, M. had sealed us off again in a separate conversation and J. melted back into her book. However, M. didn’t hesitate to pull her back in whenever she felt like it—“What are you reading again?” “What did you think about those poets last night?”—and J. obliged without question

11.23.98

The Raiséd Eyebrow