Day 47

6-10 inches is beginning to mean 1.5 inches in Greenfield weather.





I Missed The Train

I missed the train
It's rumbling out of the station
with the people who
I am supposed to do
something brilliant with.
It is moving away
picking up steam
and I am standing on the
ramp where the wooden
carts with the giant iron wheels sit.
When I was six I would go
stand at the station
watch the train come
bring my father home.
I climbed on those carts and
stood high above the tracks.
I was tall and sturdy.
Then I got too heavy
to pull myself up.
I started to refuse to go pick Dad up
I didn't admit I couldn't climb
onto my favorite carts.
Told my younger brother
it was because I was wearing
a skirt and stockings
He said "No its not, it's 'cause you're fat."
Today I'm left standing on the ramp
so I turn around and go back to my car
and pray it will start.

I should change
carry a big stick
drink rum from a flask
play pool or darts
go to a new restaurant on a
daily basis to read the paper
and thumb through a treatise on Nabokov.
I should cut my hair and wear some mascara
try shades of gray or pearl.




I am caught
In the middle of the McDonald's room
filled with brightly colored plastic balls
unable to move. My foot
goes down and slips back to the bottom.
I can remember around ten
I would go for walks
down deep in the woods.
My parents warned me
that there was quick sand
in patches all through the woods
and if I fell in I shouldn't move
I should stand absolutely still until
someone finds me and pulls
me out. But I knew
he'd never find me and that
I was seeping too fast.
By the time I was fourteen
I stopped feeling safe
walking in the woods by myself.
I thought more of hobos or tramps
waiting behind trees
to nab me, rape me, physically
hurt me before anyone cold reach me.
I stayed away from the woods.


I feel like a mussel shell
slightly open - pulled so tight
it's probably impossible to open me up.
But because that crack is there
you are going to try
you can't leave me just lying
in the sand kept healthy by
the rhythm of the salt salt sea
You can't because I am a test
of your endurance, your strength, your whit.
You are man and I am a shell
and you must get inside me and soak me
in wine and Worcestershire sauce
swallow me almost whole.
I will be naked when you
place me on a half shell on your fire
until I am just right.
I will sit in your mouth - fragrant
full of taste, just long enough
to be recognized as perfect
Then you will swallow.

I feel like screaming
“don't leave this port of call”
“stay until I am ready”
“don't sail off without me”
“don't leave this railroad station,
as I tear a rip in my panty hose
on the splintery wooden cart.”
“Don't yank me down in your
arms of sand - the harder I squirm
the faster you pull.”
“Don't crack me, split me, taste me.”
Please let me catch up.
Let me .