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Zara
Raab Page 2 Union Station
A child
sits on a porch
on a
seam-split couch;
a few
cracked engines
grace a
tired lawn,
and
paint peels off;
at Union
Station,
trains
whistle and moan,
through
elms and silver birch––
till the
five-ten sounds
and she
stirs, heartsick
in the
pale afternoon,
wilted
flower, blur,
till her
cousin comes
to
siphon Turkic
worry
percolating there.
They sit
together,
hold
back their chatter;
absent
the slumlords.
Trains
arrive, pull out;
leaves
clot the gutters.
Indoors,
women bent
to their
work, cough, banter;
smoke
rises skyward.
published in (in a slightly
different form) in Spillway
in 2005.
© Copyright,
2012,
Zara Raab. |