THE DEAD The train leaves nightly. I wave to the faces pressed against the glass. There Sandy, there Joe, there Jack. Suzanne of the cobalt blue eyes and beautiful breasts, I know them all. Bill and Newton and Birdie. Each night when they arrive I knock on the windows and ask, What is it like over there? They answer, mouths moving, but I cant hear them and so they hold up crude drawings scrawled on lined paper: an apple, a fish, a cup of coffee, a sunlit day. The drawings come alive: the wind flattening then caressing the grass. Seagulls hunkered down and waiting for a storm and Oh, the sweet sideways light of afternoon touching and reddening yet more the old brick buildings along 11th avenue. A pear ripening and a jar of honey making a wavering pool of gold on the wooden table. I press my ear to the glass. The boarding line Im standing in gets shorter as the world behind me fills with the laughter of the temporarily immortal. I button my top button against the cold.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 13:59:38 +0000