(Asael Pena/Unsplash)

Through the turnstile,
uptown or down,

past the bench
where life

sleeps
on its rack

of layers and litter.
The platform’s edge

and its oncoming
promise.

We are admitted—
the sick,

the pre,
the post,

the free of suffering
and disease—

deciphering
staticky

apostrophes
from above—

then out
the revolving gate

of before,
after

and beyond.

John Skoyles is poetry editor of Ploughshares. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Poetry, and elsewhere. His most recent book is Yes and No (Carnegie-Mellon, 2021).

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