Help me find a poem about an whole alternate life on a train ride

Post date: 2020-08-07 10:55:45

I read this poem in either Harpers or New Yorker years ago. I have searched the archives of both sites and can't find it, so my last thought was perhaps Metafilter will know. The poam is about a person (can't remember man or woman) who shares a glance with another passenger on a train, i'm almost certain is the NYC subway. The train continues and the writer imagines this entire life with this other person...

They travel together as the train runs off the rails and somehow they sort of fly through their entire other life, then the train arrives and life resumes unchanged.

It's simple and beautiful and it just needles my brain that I can't remember it. Like a poetry version of the Star Trek Next Generation "The Inner Light" episode... I wish i had more details but that's all I've got.

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