On a slow local train, off-peak, a man and a woman sat facing each other in an empty car. He wore a blue mask, she a yellow one. Silence pooled between them—soft breaths seeping through paper-thin fabric. Eyes flicked up, away. They remained together, bound solely by assigned seating.

Li Ruan, born and raised in Beijing, China, is a Manhattan-based educational consultant, emerging immigrant poet, and writer. Her work has appeared in Restless Books, Flora Fiction, Assignment Literary Magazine, Persimmon Tree, Storyhouse, Hamilton Stone Review, New York Public Library Zine, Lowestoft Chronicle, Discretionary Love, Cool Beans Lit, and Shot Glass Journal.