I was alone at the station

by Jack Galmitz

I was alone at the station. It was late. The time of night when the ferocious day slept. It was misty and halos formed around the globes of light on the platform.  It was an elevated station. Midway the length of the line. If I leaned forward and down I could see the little town below, empty of people, as if the boy who owned it was sleeping and left it on a table.  The platform was concrete – had not absorbed the fine rain. Its color was the same.

I thought of Salvation, probably asleep with his eyes half open, waiting for me. I repeatedly looked left around a bend to see the approach of lights of a train or its rumble. At this hour, it would be distinct, a musical instrument. No telling who could approach, who could enter the station now.

There was a giant shadow as light sprung on the side of the building, the faded advertisement for Horowitz’s Clothes shown, the length of the train stopped. I entered. I looked around to find the safest place to sit. There was a homeless man bundled in clothes asleep at the other end of the car. No one ranting. I made sure I faced no one of the few there.

I rarely went out. It’s been years since I’ve lived like that. Nothing out there except danger.

I thought of Salvation standing at the doorway when I got home. He was a mixed. I got him after I saw the city’s animal control vehicle remove a large dog from an apartment with a tightening loop around its neck that choked it if it tried to escape. I thought how someone could send their dog to a most certain death because they had grown tired of him or were moving or what. The dog was old and no one would take it and it was going to be given an injection and it would.

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JACK GALMITZ WAS BORN IN NYC IN 1951.  HE ATTENDED THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND RECEIVED A PH.D FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF BUFFALO IN 1985.  HE IS THE AUTHOR OF NUMEROUS BOOKS, INCLUDING AN ACADEMIC STUDY OF MODERNIST HAIKU AND MICROPOETRY, ENTITLED VIEWS, TWO POETRY COLLECTIONS BASED ON LANGUAGE SCHOOL THEORY, BRICKS AND ANYONE HOME, AND A RECENT SALVO ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE HAIKU COMMUNITY, SPOT.  HE IS MARRIED AND LIVES WITH HIS WIFE AND STEPSON IN NYC.

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