Tulane Review Digital

Red Line
By Ray Ball
Something you may not know
about me is that one morning
on the Metro de Madrid headed
to the stop at Noviciado I stood—
I thought, securely—among the throng.
Lawyers and custodians and agronomists.
a second before my own. We both scurried away—
as best as one could, we fled through a crowded subway
car during morning rush hour. I never reported it
to the transit or other authorities.
Something you may not know a
bout me is that I added it to a tally
of men, known and unknown, whose eyes
I wish I could forget, whose deeds I wish had
Students with backpacks. I avoided eye contact miscarried— not even a spilling of seed.
by reading Dostoevsky’s The Idiot on my way
Chicago Waste Management
By Alex Shapiro
Truck procession gnashing over the soft
crackle of a Flamin Hot Cheeto
sliding down a hook. Whizzing
arc against the stench wafting east
into a plop next to a mass
of fuzzies and foil, the dust
cloud bloating around matching
it’s young fisher’s red orange
to the Archivo de Villa. I was gripping a pole
with my free hand, when a man attempted
fingertips. Eyelids slump with the shadows
growing under a tree carved full of initials
to masturbate on me. Another woman’s shock
registered
and the newest REI Co-op nestling in a factory
husk, eased