The passengers are, as ever, excitable after the fireworks, so I lose myself in a book. When people pile up by the door between subway cars and one enterprising man tries to shoulder out its window, I look up.
 

Why are they screaming? I ask a woman to my left. Some guy pulled a knife on someone and some idiot pulled the emergency brake, she replies. And where is the knife guy? She tilts her head to the other, mostly empty side of the car. I read on.

At last, the window is smashed, and I follow the others out. At the next station, we slip between policemen, each of us affirming that we hadn’t seen a thing. And for the life of me, I can’t remember the name of that book.

Lara Frankena is a Midwesterner by birth and a Londoner by chance. Her poems have appeared in Poetry News, Oxford Poetry and Magma, among others.