The Train

You know the hard days are coming.
But in the future, say, two weeks off.
You see it over the horizon,
stitching quietly toward you.
It wails. But you’re not riding it yet.
For now you’re safe.
The snow is bright, and blinding.
Your heart leaps at it, an ember
that hisses as it hits the blankness.
Leaps at snow or leaps, through time, at that future blankness?
All this cold is dazzling.
So dazzling you forget to console yourself
in the second person.
The professor in my head says, don’t use so many adjectives.
Marie Howe suggests trying to resist metaphor
in order to endure the thing itself.
Okay. So what words are left? What joy?
All the geniuses love verbs: words like waits
or leaps or runs.
I like nouns too. Snow. Ember. Train.
Taking this inventory, I feel like a giant human
playing with thumb-sized furniture,
sliding concepts into their wooden rooms.
I put my eye into the window.
But it makes the room run dark.
It’s me—me who is descending.
Also me who runs.


From True Mistakes (University of Arkansas Press, 2025). Reprinted with the permission of the poet.