Today on the train I am doing something I rarely do. I am reading. Usually, I am looking, but this book I got on Sunday has been sitting quietly but with great gravity that has finally pulled me to it.

At the next station people get on, people get off, and there is jockeying and pushing all around. I raise my head in irritation at the disturbance and look around for the first time. Seated in front of me is a large young woman who doesn’t really merit a second glance. She looks like so many other people, with big cheap earrings, a dark hoodie, vari-colored extensions woven into her hair. But fuck me, she’s reading Virgil’s Aeneid.

I am properly chastened, and delighted, of course to have my assumptions punctured. And so I return to my reading. The words are a hard perfection revealing a tender, messy warm humanity and by page five I am gasping, wiping my eyes at the sheer hopelessness, sheer hopefulness, and I am punctured yet again.