Rowan Tate

Gara de Nord

A woman with two pink plastic bags
stills in the middle of the platform,
as if time briefly forgot
to carry her forward.

The crowd
spills around her
like water around a stone.

One of the bags tears slightly,
stretched too thin.
She shifts her weight
like something small inside her
made a different decision.

I watch the next train arrive
and think about missing it
on purpose.

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Rowan Tate is a creative and curator of beauty. She reads nonfiction nature books, the backs of shampoo bottles and sometimes minds.