Kansas CityEarly morning over silver tracks
a cool light, Noni Daylight’s
a dishrag wrung out over bones
watching trains come and go.
They are lights, motion
of time that she could have
caught
and moved on
but she chose to stay
in Kansas City, raise the children
she had by different men,
all colors. Because she knew
that each star rang with separate
colored hue, as bands of horses
and wild
like the spirit in her
that flew, at each train whistle.
Small moments were cycles
at each sound.
Other children elsewhere
being born, half-breed, blue eyes,
would grow up with the sound
of trains etched on the surface
of their bones, the tracks
cutting across Kansas City into hearts
that would break into pieces
in Cheyenne, San Francisco
always on the way back home.
Early morning,
if she had it to do over
she would still choose:
the light one who taught her
sound, but could not hear his
own voice, the blind one
who saw her bones wrapped
in buckskin and silver,
the one whose eyes tipped up
like swallows wings
(whose ancestors laid this track,
with hers),
all of them,
their stories in the flatland belly
giving birth to children
and to other stories
and to Noni Daylight
standing near the tracks
waving
at the last train to leave
Kansas City.