That was the winter of the broken foot
and the new position, the misery
of hobbling down eighteen steps onto the open ground
and then passing through the filthy turnstile
and the fetid tunnel, like the other sinners, suits
and ties crowding onto one train after another
that clattered shut and whisked away, depositing us
on the other side, delivering us to the platform
and the crumbling stairs, to the iron railing
where I dragged myself out of the earth
and faced a crippled trumpeter
on the corner, my twin,
my job,
the endless gleaming buildings.