Spring Morning at the Philadelphia Amtrak Station

Travelers slouch behind low barricades of baggage, backs
to the tiled walls.  Two men paired in low conversation
lean at a column, smoothing worn bills with their fingers,

faces hidden in hoods like traders at a camel fair.
Children’s faces sink behind tiny sunglasses as they fall asleep.
We observe one another like cities

on the same broad plain, scanning for relief columns,
vulnerable to the clouds, measuring the distances
through the glare as though from so many windows,

and the eyes we meet turn away to the firmament
of peeling painted signs, the ranked fluorescent suns.