Elegy in Which I Am Awake
I thought it would be another door
opened in the body,
opened on a street
where there is music, and
a little rain or snow falling,
the sound of someone shouting
in the rain,
and the new warmth
of bare feet in streetlight,
blue field at dusk
and you are always
stepping on bees. When you said
there was thunder
a car swerved, went over
the railing
into a previous summer,
though the horn
wouldn’t stop for hours,
and steam rose
from the hood like a horse.
No bodies were found. I like
to think they boarded a train
in the breath length between
windshield and dawn,
caught the rail in time
for the whistle which expands
to a sky, and turned their backs
on the cicadas. Now
the train wades into a field
somewhere, out
beyond the moon’s reflection
in the center of the lake,
cabin lights flickering.
Now it travels the earth.