This is for you
wishing trains like people would slow the hell down
the storm
calling you home.

This is for you
leaning on a moonpillow cheek taped to the window
hair pouring from your slider like wine to the wind
click gesturing with its hands in a smoky tease
dappling your crisp tight virgin.

This is for you in a chew
deciding where what or with whom to carry on or exit
lugging your lovage over the threshold
offing your ear in the off'ing
wondering if those berths for six still exist
are worth the price of spectacles
to keep your world within a world dancing on a pin
milling next a mill pond of white swans and diamonds
so bright you put on your shades to be nearer the music.

In their compartment click birthing they make their own tryptych
a Yugoslavian picnic for three generations
click could be a crap shoot a hen house off the beatnik beat click
in come baguettes, cheese rounds, whole cooked chickens
frisked by hammocks as aprons with dew plump grapes
scoop and flutter scoop and drink
their menfolks' hunger
deep in the folds of their hip swag.

This is for you
sitting in the flip top corridor hugging a waterbottle
having taken a vow to be cleansed of polluted talk
a machine gun watches you fold into yourself
nervously twisting the cord void of its passport
the trigger finger strangled to a blood sucking hue
it's all you can think about all you can do
to focus on the pulse as each moment
disappears in the waves of brave new suits
winding your selfwinding portrait
up past 1 now 2 now 3 past stop check aaaaaaaaah the visa is good.

It's been 22 years since I popped that cork
under the dome of nature's cathedral
one crystal night
a second class fairy from Split to Dubrovnik
we huddled on deck were brothers in arms
guitar whispering gypsies concentrically singing
a feeling lighter than the sun;

Out of the woods the terminal daylight
each to each returned our stations
ablaze with flags the foreign faces
seem stiff and cold as medieval stones;
I want to leap in lovage leap and be
slippery as olives in clay olive oil
weaving an olive jug-jug
its massive belly astonishingly in tact
as big and wide as Buddha's
sleeping bag you rest Zen head upon
nestling steam
under your skin.

03/19/2013

Posted on 03/20/2013
Copyright © 2024 Elizabeth Shaw