IN SEARCH OF THE LEAST ABANDONED CONSTELLATION

The rain falls on & off in the western city. The train slips

in & out of tunnels throughout the city. The reader falls endlessly

into her book. The train is an accordion, playing the silence

of adult waiting. The train is a giant ant, wearing an exoskeleton

of polite faces peering out. The reader’s face is not among them.

The reader’s face is a child’s rapt face. The book is her latest

soul, disguised as a more or less acceptable concrete object.

The child is happy. The afternoon, a novel.

The open page rains & creates another, softer city. The child is held

cool & weightless in the arms of the novel, while the parents are

so classic with worry—How will our child be a doctor &/or lawyer now?

Support us when we are old? The parents watch people run,

rushing to catch the train. The people’s faces deer-like with panic,

relief. The child reads & reads, does not understand completely.

She has no need. The parents wish for stillness, then movement

for their child, then themselves. They peer over their child’s shoulder

& catch the words, They were in search of the least abandoned constellation.

The parents wait for the child to become a western bird, but the child

keeps leaking into a northern lake. In the novel, a central adult is writing

a strange letter because her parents have died. A deeply impossible thing

to the child reading, but she manages to suspend her disbelief.

The adult in the novel reads over her letter, unsure of the words—

Now that you are not even the rain, what train can I take? Remember

when we were morning after morning of such ordinary waiting,

of hair still wet in the April light & suitcases held tight?