"Trains."
This is for my sister Edie.
This early in the morning, the clouds have cleared
and I hear the whistles of train after train
rolling across the desert five miles south in the dark.
I remember trains, the one that carried
you north to the forest in autumn,
as if no other mode of travel was good enough.
But we had our own, didn't we?
The warm tongue of dope, cool teeth of booze,
the dirty fingers of men whose names we could never remember
no matter how hard we tried.
What was it about us we hated so much?
Sleeping in strangers beds was easier than even approaching
that age old question.
The ratty Motor Lodge just south of Newport that summer,
its depression ware dishes in dull primary colors,
the muddy spring trickling down to the beach like blood
from a cut.
No one could ever sweep all the grit off those chipped linoleum
tiles.
The two brothers who owned the place, what do the older ones
hands feel like on your skin?
I met a man just after you left.
When we slid away from the bar and headed out to his house
he was the nicest guy I'd ever known in my life.
But there were Nam ghosts inside those walls, shadows
of his petrified wife and kids.
He had to take a shower right after we did it
on the living room floor.
He laid down a blanket first and quoted Genesis to me.
The tracks were just behind his back fence
and I could see myself running along those shrieking metal
rails, nothing but the clothes on my back
and a photo of you in my pocket, you're
scared eyes staring at nothing.
I pulled myself up into one of those empty cars heading
east or west, it didn't make any difference.
After I caught my breath, I glanced back toward town.
Not a single soul was watching.