Riding the Q train to Brooklyn, returning to my roots,
I look out the window; a glorious sun paints the sky

turquoise, and the sea a glittering mirror of blended
blues and greens and majestic gold.

And I listen to the susurrations of the sea in my
dreamscape as the Q hisses and growls, bellows

and shrieks; the antediluvian train rushes forth
and stops suddenly as it struggles to cross the
Manhattan Bridge.

The Q’s on fire beneath the August sun. It chugs
along the seething tracks to a primeval Brooklyn,

as pristine as the whooper swan sailing above
Iceland and across the globe;

Cygnus cygnus soars high in the heavens and
across Space and Time,

vanishing in a snow-covered memory.

Riding the Q train to Old Brooklyn, I long to go
home; I want to disappear in the deep snow of

my youth; it’s winter there for the boy I used to
be. Mother sits with him and feeds him grand
dreams.

I crave Old Brooklyn where Mother died too
soon. Her ghost sits with the apparition of
the boy-poet.

I long to return. But I can’t. Or can I? The Q
is about to enter DeKalb Avenue, the first
station in Brooklyn.

I close my eyes and fall asleep. I dream about
the whooper swan. We vanish together.