Wrong Train

Wrong Train

Whirligigs as remedies,
things spin without thought of stop.
Twisters take long strolls down Westlake Avenue,
heavy and drunk with the morning news.

People reap without sowing,
kill without drawing blood; I talk to a man
at the metro station and he says his legs were blown off
by a computer 10,000 miles away.

Shadows as memories,
we shake hands and drink to that.
We pull our hats down low and pretend,
shake off the dust that has covered everything.

I ride the rail until I don’t see anything;
bodies come and go, landscapes blend and ripple.
The train slips inside me, electric wire weaved
into my thick, bulging veins.

I am too tired to note the encapsulation of my life.
It’s only when someone else
hits the brakes, I take notice at all that I have hopped
the wrong
train.

“Wrong Train” first appeared in the When Time and Space Conspire anthology back in December 2016.