Ice

She stuffs herself in subways

just tight enough for hips

to slide past hips, palms

stuck on poles and knuckles

against knuckles, skin on

skin. Globs of glue on orange caps

must be scraped and scraped—

we get angry when glue sticks.

A blind woman watches snowflakes become yanked

from the ground and float to the sky—the train stops

suddenly and her chin falls between

the shoulder blades of a stranger.

Breath on backs the icy air floats into lungs and warms

like hands on knees build fires.

She scrapes the ice from the car she’ll never drive

and sits behind the wheel just to feel.

And riding rush hour trains to Brooklyn and back, she melts

ice.