Day Off, Off Day

There’s a woman on the subway with a can opener

And a fork. 

She watches me eat rice cakes

And our eyes lock at Ossington Station,

Then at Keele,

Then Royal York. 

She takes a can of tuna from her purse and opens it. 

It usually rains in April, but this year it rains in June. 

The train smells of fish. 

When she finishes she places the metal can under her seat. 

I watch the other passengers watch her and I think of the metal can sliding down the car and cutting someone. 

“Weird things happen after a full moon,” a woman tells me. 

I think of “weird things.” 

A glass bottle slides across the bus on my way to the mall. 

I think of it smashing against a wall and  stop it with my foot. 

I listen to conversations: a man says “I make fifty dollars an hour.” 

A woman gives up her seat for an old lady; the old lady says thank you then takes off her shoes. 

I think of getting a car, then I think realistically. 

These are my muses.

A can of tuna, fifty dollars an hour and a full moon.