November 18

Phillip Sterling

On a train into Washington
I am thinking how night comes
in the afternoon when
a woman boards, parcels out
parcels on the seat across
from me, and begins to floss.
Her reflection in the window
is no comparison to that
of a back-lit vanity mirror,
but her hygienist (one can
only imagine) has insisted
she be conscientious, and so
on her way back into the city
from an afternoon’s snack
and frolic at her lover’s
she has yanked a generous length
of unwaxed dental floss
from the travel-handy pack
she’d fished from her bag
and begun. She is oblivious
to scowls of weary students,
to the face I’m trying not
to make; she is busy making
her own face in the glass,
hemming and yawing, working
the filament carefully, no gap
missed, the way her cheerful
hygienist demonstrated. Now
she exhibits a smile meant
for appreciation, the smile
of a woman grooming openly
on public transportation
headed toward the capitol
of a government even now
debating my rights to privacy.