No Sure Way by Loudon Wainwright III (written two days after the event.)
So I started out on High Street. Had to travel into town.
Like some Orpheus descending through a turnstyle underground.
From Brooklin Heights into Manhatten, which was where I had to be.
Now you have to take the A-Train, since there's no service on the C.
And when you are underwater, sometimes the mind plays tricks.
And there beneath the East River, it felt like the river Styx.
The first stop was Broadway Nassau.A few more passengers got in.
We all sat. No-one was standing. That's somewhere we'd never been.
They say Heaven's high above us and Hell is far below.
But in that subway tunnel there was no sure way to know.
Chamber Street, a closed ghost station. Passing through, we seemed to glide.
Like prisoners inside compartments on some house of horrors ride.
The walls were tiled, I hadn't noticed. They seemed so antiseptic, clean.
But we knew what we were under. The lights were on. That seemed obscene.
Then I saw the three initials, W, T and then C.
I'd survived, somehow was living but somewhere I shouldn't be.
At the next stop the doors opened and I immerged up above ground.
I was in another country. Ellyseum Fiels? No, China Town.
They say Heaven's high above us and Hell's not far below.
But standing on Canal Street, there was no sure way to go.
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