Midnight Train Ascend
In haste, on some Wednesday night,
she caught
a train, well aware
she’d left her body’s aching stones
on the ground, behind her now.
A circle of burning
rocks flaring up,
its smoke carried away by the warm winds,
but from the unshut railway window,
they were only
visible to her memory
and those who chose to travel by air.
In foreign train compartments,
there were
faint rumors
of the places she’d gone to
like maps
printed on her face.
“There is nothing,” the voices
whispered,
“She hasn’t borne strongly and freely,”
but they did not know of that meeting
that had crushed
the stone walls of her castle
to reveal places she had not yet
dared go.
And so, the train raised
itself above those
tracks
as if wings grew suddenly
on its sides. And
she flew out of
this world, away from departures
and last call tickets,
bitter-sweet kisses in
doorways,
and teary eyes longing to have
that
which never belonged to them.
