STEPHANIE BARBÉ HAMMER

RIDING THE METRO D LINE

The marvelous machines have come
At last to Beverly Hills!
They zip through tunnels then slide
You up shining metal
Stairs and boxes
To a whole different
Part of the city! –
It’s miraculous: it takes HOURS to drive these
Congested LA distances and
Walking? Forget about it – but
Now you can go to the theater or the stadium or the
Museum or that big Beauty of a main
Train station in 26 minutes.
Or the reverse – which is what
I do.
“Excuse me” says a very young man in
An orange vest to me on the platform
“Here is your paper map”
(“Oh, aged lady of the hard copy people,” he is thinking but
He thinks it kindly).
“It folds out,” he explains and he’s so excited
that he spreads out the tiny paper
then escorts me personally to a
sparkling new cylinder
where we whoosh and in no time
I ascend at La Cienega and Wilshire
All high-end palm trees
and premium sunlit streets.
Someday, we’ll take this train to the beach, and
Someday
Sooner than you think
We’ll join other world cities
So in love with each other
We’ll prefer to travel always
En masse.
Together.

FOUND POEM ON THE AMTRAK

She was like it’s all fine
And I was like no it’s not

Stephanie Barbé Hammer is an award-winning novelist, short fiction writer, and poet. She has published work in a bunch of places including The Chiron Review, Phantom Drift, The RavensPerch, and Spillway. Her most recent titles are The Warbler School Chronicles (fiction) and City Slicker: encounters with the outside (poetry)– both published by Bamboo Dart Press. A former New Yorker, Stephanie moved to Southern California in 1986 and has (mostly) been there ever since. She currently lives in Santa Barbara with her husband, writer and political organizer Larry Behrendt.

Stephanie Barbé Hammer
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https://www.stephaniebarbehammer.com/