Image by Roxana Kenjeeva

Poetry A Natural Passenger

Homa Zarghamee

as natural as a pigeon in asphalt
and the dove that mourns above it
so natural that when the wing
breaks and the body buckles
or the car bends around the tree
like a knotweed or the conductor
is momentarily blinded so
that the train derails and turns
on its side like a restless sleeper
I will return to my seat

Homa Zarghamee is a professor and chair of economics at Barnard College.