On the way downtown, to do the animation workshop with a small group of women fighting chronic diseases:

Bellowing, barking, enraged
man paces short track on empty
uptown A platform
screaming and kicking

on the way down
I had to squeeze past
an oblivious young couple
blocking the stairs
with ten feet clear on either side
“excuse me,” I mumbled
not pausing as I passed
“YOU SHOULD SAY ‘EXCUSE ME”!”
the bellicose voice shouted after me
“I did,” I said
a moment before arriving
on the platform to see my train’s
tail lights
disappear into the tunnel

sat and struck up a tune
on the ukulele
man next to me, as soon as I paused,
went into a lusty falsetto improvisation
in another key entirely,
if any.

Zipped the uke back into its bag,
watched the screaming man
across the tracks
bark and dance to the duet
he was performing
with the falsetto singer.

Mercifully,
this super cool train
arrived within a moment
and I am grateful
for that
impersonal mercy.

Then, downtown, moments after my volunteer assistant cancelled at the last possible minute, and it seemed there would be only four of us (two more of the original 8 showed up late), to my great surprise, the five women made like a bunch of kids, working together and coming up with some very cool animation.  You can see it here (you might need dropbox to see it.  I’ll post it elsewhere soon):

adults playing like kids