The Wrong End of Williamsburg or a Life

It felt like a stage set I'd wandered onto
heading deeper into the dark down deserted
blocks of shuttered warehouses and street signs I couldn't see
past where I should have turned like
those times no amount of sunlight could burn through the darkness
but I'd already gone far enough in this direction retraced my steps till I
saw the right street and kept expecting someone to
jump out with a gun saying it's over,
this is as far as you go, once pointed at me
when I exited an elevator on
returning jet lagged from England and
ran screaming NO   down the hall

                                               your hands are so cold, a friend said,
greeting me in the gallery....too bright, too sudden
I was still outside as I walked around looking at
my friend's collages, struck by their beauty and
tried to talk my way into this room to someone who
said that he's scared when he sees people where he lives
not when there's no one about

back in the same dark I'd never fully left
with two male friends I ran to keep up with
as they fled down the subway steps
into a train which had just pulled in...
one tried to hold the door open for me as
I struggled to swipe my metro card past try again
watched the doors close & froze:
this is as far as you go struck


                           Linda Lerner