Seed

As I'm standing on the subway platform, staring idly across the tracks to the opposite side where people stand and pretend you can't see them, my eyes alight on a thistledown seed, floating in midair in the tunnel, delicate little hairs perfectly still.

It drifts on unseen air currents, like something underwater rising and falling languidly with the tide. 

After my questions exhaust themselves, I hear in my head a word, and behind it, a phrase, with the promise of more to come, so I scramble in my bag to find my notebook to write it all down, only to discover I left it at home.

I pull out the paper on which they printed my poor review for work, and scribble a poem on the back, and when I look up, the mysterious seed has disappeared.