Circus Peanuts

There is a young Chinese woman directly across from me on the 7 train. Her worn gloves are orange, the unfortunate color of circus peanuts. They look soft, but a bit too fuzzy, as though she'd been sifting through pine cones while wearing them. I know she's Chinese because of the guidebook she's carrying: "New York", and underneath, those tell-tale squashed spiders. They seem so needlessly complicated, given the visual simplicity of our own alphabet.