A man sitting next to me Smells like grass and cigarettes He’s a small man but His hands are so big and worn out Like the machinery that they treat him as Rusty, but working to the point of malfunction Just like the relationship between me and my father Which is exactly what the man on the 2 train looks like A little Mexican man with dark hair and baggy eyes Torn jeans and dirty work boots just like my father With a black Jansport book-bag That smells like the company that exploits him Like grass and cigarettes Or like the fish market, where my father knows is the death of him He made a vow to his children that he cannot live for Himself because he is too old to dream, too Mexican to be citizen And far too stubborn to give me and two other siblings anything but love Just like the man on the 2 train Who probably has children to feed, where he works Less than minimum wage jobs to make limited food on the table Just like my father, far too old for the physical work he’s given But too motivated to stop, hoping that his children Will learn the vocabulary he doesn’t know, the language he rarely spoke Just like the man on the 2 train, with the grey mustache and the foreign name Who was falling asleep next to me on the 2 train And he nods off and drifts away, to the place where his parents once lived And where he once called home... “Next stop is 72nd street” Only to wake up and realize That he’ll never be young and even if he were he would not be back in Puebla He’d work his way only to end up in the same place he’s in today Just like my father And I wonder how he doesn’t go insane Cause I can’t travel without the iPod my father bled for Because I wouldn’t dare leave myself with my own thoughts Like the man with the baggy eyes, ripped jeans and dirty work boots Like the man on the 2 train I cry because I look into his blank eyes and don’t know what he’s thinking Just like my father, who looks like the cracks on my palms So close and always loving but to the world, he’s so small and crooked across my skin So unnoticed. Just like the man on the 2 train.