LES MISÉRABLES

A morning train.

Hidden among

the throng, like stowaways,

is a cast of characters.

A stranger smuggled

them abroad.

Aloft, their lives

keep turning,

page after page

centuries later.

Which has me think

as I gaze at the binding

above me: we are all

passengers traveling

toward one kind of

transfiguration or another

authored by the hand

of chance and necessity,

ignorance and misery,

redemption and grace,

like a man toiling on a tome

once upon a time.