Mary Jo Bang: "In Order" Means Neat and Not Next

Night was next. At some point
On the train, the outside dissolved
And she was sitting next to herself in a seat.

In a two-tone gray and blue
Vinyl seat with hints of a previous sitter.
The dim other she'd tried so hard to revive

But failed was staring back at her
Through grit and dirt glass.
These are my footprints, she said,

To her feet (Mary Jo's in Mary Janes)
which were sitting on the floor, one next to the other,
Nullifying notions of wholeness.

The absurd road had been obliterated
And all of the moment was inside.
The body buried in time. A fickle list of numbers.

Sleep was the utopian fantasy
She wished she could fall into.
Eye to the window, to fate.

Feeling but not seeing. Out there was absence
And presence. Out there was a row
Of everything she remembered.