Sarah

Sitting in the rain on the second step up to the landing where that clock waits. Crouching under dark clouds that read a cool damp day. Cigarette curled between forefinger and thumb, a mobile home for this small fire. Its eleven thirty-nine am. I worry about having to pee once on the train. From around the corner walks a person;  long dark blue legs , walkable heeled boots, dirt- toned hair in one of those messy buns I could never seem to manage when my hair was long too. Four quarters chime into the parking slot: she got a lot close to the tracks, and I was happy that she did. The first thing she does when our eyes catch is smile at me: I can see teeth. I am pleasantly confused by the aura of openness. Not often is it offered to me without prompt.  Something is said about coffee, but the station office is closed: 6:30 am to 10:30 am: horrible hours that don't make sense. I offer a memory; six years old and holding in a full bladder on a jostling train, but I lie and say that the office was closed then too, perhaps to make a point about ridiculous hours for a train station. It was an easy lie, much too simply done now that I look back on it. 
      She's pulled out a cigarette, yellow pack, American spirit, it matches her bag. It seems to her that our indulgence of tobacco is a secret connection we share, and I agree, still questioning this birds open wings yet indulging in the umbrella they provide.  She... They've just moved out of the city, philadelphia. "why the move?" "i wanted a yard." and a garden. I envisioned her in the sun, so content in her own patch of rich dirt, hair and earth. 
The deep-breathing train opens its doors and I saunter off to find a window seat. Her spirit will take a while and she says "see you in there, nice meeting you",  verbalizing the delicate bond that had somehow been formed between us, it could slip away at any given time. 
I've found a good seat towards the front and with a view. " there you are," she chooses the seat in front of me, " I can't sit the other way, it makes me sick." I agree, thinking about how as a kid it is so fun to ride backwards, like a roller coaster, yet somewhere along the way to adulthood our bodies begin to  disagree. I didn't say this. We make some kind of small talk about location of living, the invasion of cul de sacs where farmland once reigned. 
The cadence of her voice reminds me of julia,  and i vaguely decide in  my mind that she is a photographer. Trains  moving now and our conversations dwindled into the chock chack chack of the train. " back to my book, sorry." " it's alright" I state," I'm writing a poem." " oh, good luck!" she says that a lot, about luck, the way people say 'uh' when they can't think of anything else, or perhaps when they are unsure of themselves.  
I'm busy writing about yesterday, about anger, while also reprimanding myself for not talking to this human sitting two feet in front of me who has made a beautiful effort to connect. Im sneaking licorice and peeks at the back of her head, and vaguely contemplate how shes done up such a perfectly simple nest of strands. The book is small, a novel of sorts, shes about one-third of the way in. I consider writing about my inability to interact with this woman, my unwillingness I decide, is what it truly is.  After several stops and several sentences of my poem I notice that she is searching for something.  I catch her eye," what are you looking for?" " my ticket, I had it up here but I don't know where it went, I saw him( the conductor) put it there" we search, heads bobbing and ducking like some kind of children's toy. " I'm going to ask him"
I watch her bag as she makes her way down the car. I look back; her head is bent to the left a bit and their eyes are questioning. As she comes back she asks the man in front of her if he's seen the ticket. He has, it fell And had assumed that it was the previous passengers. She Apologizes to me, I'm not quite sure why but I understand. 
I've decided to talk with her, I want to know who this person is.
She is a photographer. An adjunct at temple teaching a photojournalism course. " I used to be a lab tech. Now I run the lab. It's strange, having employees, having to tell people they've fucked up." I understand entirely, " we'll you seem like you'd be able to tell people they've fucked up in a nice way." smiling;" well that's the hard part." 
We talk about developing film with caffeinol and vitamin C. I've never heard of it. Now that we're conversing I can see her face better: brown eyes, big and oval shaped, like wide purple flower petals. Pleasant wide lips, the top one is very defined, sharp peaks like a child's drawing of distant mountains. And a smooth rounded nose, just the right size, dense and unique; I like it. She reminds me of Sarah Tellish, sweet and soft- spoken, yet confident and sort of matter-of-fact like Julia. 
I tell her I want to help people with my art, not art therapy, more like national geographic photographer. She tells me how their success as a photo magazine was a mistake. " many good things come from mistakes" I say this because much of my successful art was a mistake. " yeah like potato chips" we both laugh softly.
We're at Temple, her stop. " we'll it was nice talking with you, nice meeting you, good luck" I say thank you and same to her, I think she's thinking the same as me, to get some kind of contact information, but that it's too much to ask. I ask anyway,"what's your name?" ...."Sarah." offers her hand through the trough in the gray seats and we shake; her grip is just right, firm yet not over bearing. I fall in love with her a little bit right then. " maybe I'll see you back at the station in Doylestown." 
I hope so. 
She's not there, or I don't see her when I get back around 6:30 pm. Driving home I say aloud to myself," life is full of beautiful connections, and the sooner you realize that you can create these interactions the more beauty you will find. The thought that I almost chose not to expand out to this human scares me. 
Lying in bed I wonder, should I try to find her? Or do I leave it at that; a symphonic slur in my day, always to be full of mystery and always a question in my mind. I'd rather not. perhaps in a few days I will send a signal her way: the Internet does have some redeeming qualities.