six.

There's a boy, a man,
my age or younger,
and he's sitting on the train
with eyelash yarn wound in his hands,
knitting.

A scarf, maybe.
He's new at it, counting stitches silently,
his lips moving through the steps
of his fingers.

I wish him luck.
I could never get the hang of
all that repetition, the patterns.
In my ear whispers

we tether our dreams to the turf
and as a child I would have called
it the radio, a tape, a record, but now
I don't have the words to

describe music.
Perhaps there aren't any left.
What will we call it
in another ten years, twenty?

How will we share the things we
love? In another decade, will he sit
with a child, teaching her
to count? Will she sing
under her breath?