Gone West

I am stiff and sore.

In two endless days on this train, I have

burned in the desert,

shivered in the mountains,

I have seen the

camps of dust-bowl migrants

along the tracks.

There was one girl.

I saw her through the slat in the boxcar.

She stared up at the passing train.

She stood by the tracks watching,

and I knew her.

August 1935