Going Home on a Friday Night

On the subway platform
feeling full and slightly woozy
after supper with a longtime friend
I hadn’t seen since before the pandemic

a large man held a very petite woman, her
spine bound and trapped perhaps by polio,
with gentleness that freed her. “You don’t
know what love means,” he said to me.

The subway pulled up, and I stepped aside
to let the man and woman on first. A young
man in a superhero costume followed them
onto the train and held a seat for me.

“Thanks, brother.” “Why are you calling me
brother?” he asked, then swooped through the
car, his red cape draped across his elbows.
On the third pass, he gave me a fist bump.

I boarded a bus two stops from home.
As I sat down, a man entered the bus
and greeted the driver in friendly words
with which I was not completely familiar.

“That was Tagalog I spoke, when I bade the
driver good evening.” He then listed the many
languages in which he can say hello. “I’m from
Scarborough”, I replied. “I only know how to swear.”

Patrick Connors is the author of The Other Life and The Long Defeat, both published by Mosaic Press.

He has recently been published in Spadina Literary Review, Asemana Magazine, Spirit Fire Review, Dissident Voice, Paddler Press, Stanzaic Journal, and Tower Poetry.