Possible to believe in a bearable sort of life
in a white room in one of the tidy anonymous streets
that flash by the elevated subway Picture it:
a blue chair for reading, a gas ring
for coffee, the lamp in its cheap shade
casting its circle of light. Outside,
soot sifts down on the cornflowers in the vacant lot,
the tailor goes down to the corner for the paper,
the sandwich man stands in his doorway
listening to the Saturday opera on the radio.