I am waiting for the downtown local. At some stations the express track is sunken below, or higher up, or on another platform entirely. Here, it is a scant few feet away.

When the express train pulls through the station here, it is not the usual scream of silver and flash. There is construction further down the line, so the train goes slowly, a trundling exhibition of commuters moving by.

I can look at each packed car. Watch her leisurely yawn, see him flip his newspaper. Sometimes our eyes meet, before the distance and darkness intervenes.