I go to work
for five days a week
with a thousand black bodies
encased in eleven coaches
that hurtle through stations
into the red ribbon of dawn
crowning the city skyscrapers.

A commuter mumbles
like a dreamer muffled
by a brandy nightcap
‘Brothers, who doesn’t know me….?
I’m a cog in Mr. Jobstein’s wheel,
And Mr. Jobstein is a big wheel
Rolling under Mr. de Wiel’s Oxwaggon.’