Every Night it's Just the Same (published in Shaking Like a Mountain)

Tom Waits and I
sit across the aisle from each other.
The train is moving again and
there is Rod Stewart
at the front of the car;
beautiful men and women surround him.
Light flashes on the walls
from an unseen disco ball,
He is singing Tom's song
as the steel wheels chatter
over seams and joints in the tracks.

Is it like this every night?
I want to ask
when I see Tom watching,
face smoothed of emotion.

But I know we all ask this question -
will I see you tonight?
Equal shares of hope and fear
as the "you" is filled in
with approaching faces and names
like stops on the downtown train.