Buildings bastardize the rolling dawn
as the train thunders into the city
away from the home of the man I love.
A construction site ivies into itself.
An almost handsome man opens his book,
spreading the covers until the spine cackles.
Authorities seep through the crowd
in blue droplets as they check passes.
When they ask for his, his mouth surrenders
into a grapevine, and the officer okays.
He is handsome, I decide
and pull out my pass to pass the test.
The train is thick today.
The woman behind me chants aloud
in a furlike tone: The ants pray for strength,
Lord, for guidance, give us guidance.
Her voice kicks the back of my neck.
The man never stops reading.
They know not because they seek not,
they seek death and the ants are worried.
White with religion, my mother prays
with me every morning before leaving home,
wakes at dawn to lather with This is the day,
this is the day that the Lord has made,
that the Lord has made. Light bends
the train and burrows into my palms.
I chant within the dust of my breath,
Yes Lord yes Lord, help her Lord,
help my mother understand,
I don’t want to hate her any longer.
The intercom reminds us we’re entering
Mount Baker station. From this height,
Franklin High School menaces,
and I bear the morning my mother
dropped me off in front of the school
so I could take my SATs, wetted my ear—
Praying you do well—and waited
until I walked through the school’s
wooden teeth before leaving.
There was no train then. No man reading.
There was me and her. My father
had gone off and married his true love.
It’s childish of me, but I believe
in true love, in the way it can lumber
the lumbar. How it twangs
the tongue into twinflower.
Too, the yowl of hate.
Look at me. I’ve fallen to haze
as the train jilts into the tunnel.
The lights flicker, and the man looks up.
Darkness bounces from his eye
to the pole and back into his book.
The world is too silent for hate.
I loathe the woman who baits me
to unleash the spell, drawing in the air
a viscous coat of wasps that cling
to each inhale. The window wipes my face
into some wight. The train stops
and the conductor announces our stay.
Someone groans at the woman still chanting.
The handsome man is looking my way,
book closed, and I carve a smile
for the woman. She reminds me
of my mother, stubborn, never shy
about her God, a woman who didn’t want
my boyfriend to break bread with us
on Thanksgiving because It’s wrong,
who apologized later, kissed me on the cheek,
who was pleased to learn that he, too,
is God-fearing. I know, I know,
but I do love my mother
as does a doe stalking the whiff of food,
gray with knowing what lies there,
hoping it is as it desired.
The woman. The man. The day once dawn.
I am finally what I desired. I take the sun
between breaths, the train’s furrow,
the man that loves God with feather and nail,
the mother I was gifted, and throw my head
back into the woman’s chant.
My life has been changed.