In the Union Square subway station nearly fifteen
years ago now, the L train came clanking by
where someone had fat-Sharpied a black heart
on the yellow pillar you leaned on during a bleak day
(brittle and no notes from anyone you crushed upon).
Above ground, the spring was the saddest one
(doing work, but also none). What were you wearing?
Something hopeful to show the world you hoped?
A tall man was learning from a vendor how to pronounce
churro. High in the sticky clouds of time, he kept
repeating churro while eating a churro. How to say
this made you want to live? No hand to hold
still there it was: someone giving someone comfort
and someone memorizing hard how to ask for it again.

—”While Everything Else Was Falling Apart,” Ada Limón