capture no.2
Don’t hide
behind the language,
hesays,
& means it:
sculpt your words
into the grumble
of trains
that rail in
sympathetic
overdrive
beside a silentrunning
river, gray
Decemberdepths
like black
ink
on a wet page
& verses punc-
tuated
with the mourning
warningwhistle
as she slows
on the outskirts
of where yesterday
meets tomorrow.
That crossroads
is all there is.
journeys
The grumble of a distant train shakes
me from dreams,
metallic smell
of her crusted veins lingering
in the moist air like a coming threat
of thunder. Fumbling
for the bathroom
light i
find myself
staring at a mirror
turned back to sand,
a shoreline of grainy morning
shadows where
the loneliest word is written
and erased by creeping tides,
traced and non-existed
like the back-and-forth
of a crosshead whose engine
chafes
to be off down the tracks,
my breath like her whistle
steaming for what lies
around the next stretch
of coast.
inquiet
my eyes in the fugged train window
are empty and not like my own,
their surface etched with blood and regret.
my hands shake out of tune
with the movement of the cars,
my limbs disjointed and only loosely
sewn together. there is a yellowing
bruise on my chest and a hollow
where my pulse should be.
i have been filled, voided, then filled again,
and i am still thirsty.
surely i am sickening for something.
