By Tram/Tramwajem

Pieszo i tramwajem

(Walking and riding trams, Katowice — Katowice 2008, Part II)

Up the long avenue
the city grew stranger.
Concrete ships rose on my left,
vast hulls of housing anchored
in the winter light.

I had never seen buildings
lean like that,
curve like that,
loom with such quiet certainty.

And then Spodek—
a saucer on the skyline,
tilted against the snow-grey dusk.
I didn’t know its story yet.
I only knew it felt
like something fallen from another decade,
brutal and improbable,
wholly unexpected.

I walked toward it
as if approaching a question
I didn’t yet know how to ask.

The tram arrived already full,
a glass and metal can of compressed life.
I suggested we could wait for another.
My friend laughed,
took my arm,
pulled me forward into the crush.

Inside, warmth closed around us—
breath, wool, damp coats,
melted snow turning to steam.
The air tasted faintly of metal and electricity.
People shifted only when they had to,
a slow, reluctant tide
making just enough space
for us to fold ourselves in.

I reached for the validator,
awkward, apologetic,
thinking we could let it go this once.

“No,” she said.
“We do this.”

Her voice firm—
the city’s rule spoken through her.

The tram lurched,
windows fogging instantly,
rails singing under frozen wheels.

I held the metal pole,
felt the whole carriage sway,
felt myself carried with it—
not a visitor now,
but part of the movement.