Poetry Wednesday: "Sipping Red Bull Through a Straw"

SIPPING RED BULL THROUGH A STRAW

The woman

on the N train

standing next to me

on the morning commute –

she is fondling her iPod, her finger

circles the click wheel

with an intimacy

I can feel on

the back of

my neck.

She’s

fashionably

sporting a black & white

striped hoodie, and Dolce & Gabbana

shades, perched on her head

like a tiara.

She takes a sip

from the drink in her right hand

while her left grips

the subway’s steel pole.

We emerge from the tunnel

onto the Manhattan Bridge

and her lashes flutter

in the sunlight. She continues

to grip the can and the pole,

her thumb fidgeting

with her fingers

as she listens to music

expressionlessly,

taking an occasional sip,

her index finger

steadying the straw

that juts out of the Red Bull.

Her lips suck the liquid up

through the clear tube.

I imagine that fluid

filling the back of her throat

and splashing down into her,

the caffeine straining

against its molecules,

dying to enter the bloodstream

like a thousand angry pit bulls

growling at the ends of their chains.

©2007 William Dickenson Cohen