sylph

In Astoria I step up to the elevated subway platform and into the calm gaze of an angel. 

For a moment that was what I felt.  I could not, even by returning the gaze - forgive me, thou! - tell if this were female or male, child or adult.  Beautiful?  Oh yes.  But impossible to place.  Of average height, in sockless loafers, fresh khakis and button down linen shirt, new and glowing white in the morning sun.  A few inches of brown hair, lightly spiked and drawn to a soft peak in the middle.  Light-skinned, but neither discernably of one race nor obviously mixed.  Unplacable as a student, commuting worker, or tourist.  A half-smile between that of daydreaming and confrontation.  Entirely still, but without rigidity, eyes yet towards the stairs.

This person was so beautifully, so perfectly, at the origin of the graph of human coordinates, as if Mile Zero to the paths of human differentiation, teasing with implication.  In a different era, we would tonight, by moonlight roll a stone onto the platform, and stand it on its side, mute, to mark the place.