Following the rail

The rain rubs under the
wheels through Hoboken,
then Jersey City, just enough rattle
to make me realize I
am still alive, sunlight
flowing over me through the
tinted windows and into
my soul, I feel this journey
rather than see it, I
taste the polluted air
that oozes off the highway
and yet I feel unstained,
the motion moving me
in time and space, inside
and out, these faces of
work people clustered
near me, strangers but
not strange, as familiar
as family who shored
such trips, a grand mother's
wandering to New York to type
each day, a grandfather
who followed her and
his own heart.