Fluorescent flicker dies on cracked yellow tile
Last car screams away empty for a mile
He unpacks felt and fork a slow deliberate style
Checks the concert pitch waits for the morning trial
My shutter clicks the dust on his brass tuning fork
He strikes the steel hard against his denim knee
A perfect sine wave cuts the platform murk
He owns the station now just him and me
A440 hums beneath the vaulted arch
He turns the pin adjusts the wooden march
First light creeps in but he ignores the spark
The tuner stays to guard the final dark
He mutes the unisons with rubber wedge and felt
Twists the wrench slow torque on the pin block tight
Every hammer strike is a note he has dealt
Tuning the steel ribs through the tunnel night
A440 hums beneath the vaulted arch
He turns the pin adjusts the wooden march
First light creeps in but he ignores the spark
The tuner stays to guard the final dark
Metronome ticks in his head sixty beats a minute
He hears the drift in cents the physics infinite
My film runs out the canister is finished
He nods at me caught in the fluorescent limit
Morning rush vibrates the tiles beneath my sole
Commuters flood the stairs a river gray and fast
He packs his case snaps shut the leather console
The perfect pitch holds through the thunder blast
I catch the bus north grainy frames in hand
His A440 rings inside my chest cavity
The clearest note in all this shifting sand
A tune that holds the chaos pure gravity
A440 hums beneath the vaulted arch
He turns the pin adjusts the wooden march
First light creeps in but he ignores the spark
The tuner stays to guard the final dark
My shutter clicks shut on the platform floor
The
