Melissa Reburiano

He sat bent over his instrument. A big keyboard attached to a small amp. His song sounded like a circus. One moment, he was the center of attention, children in their strollers smiling, quiet. People keeping their eyes on their phones or books or the floor, but you knew they were listening. Then the train came. And then he was alone. He got up to pick some papers up off the ground. The train rushed past, but he moved like a tortoise. It was beautiful. I had to take a picture. I loved how he kept his own pace as he took his place behind a saxophone playing doll while one train car blurred into the next. It was summer 2008, weeks before the big crash, months before the election. New York blurs by, but it still maintains its own steady, whimsical tune.