Train Poems

On the train home and I can’t stop 
looking for signs. The seagulls 
nesting in the middle of a lake. The man 
with a backpack on a bridge. A cluster 
of cows in a backyard, brown and white.
I have never touched a cow or even
another man. I have never stood on a wharf
with one leg extended. A few lots down, 
wheat moves like it has lots of small bodies
and needs them pressed together. 
I am wearing socks with sandals 
and have so many eyelashes. Pointing 
at unpaired leaves. Meanwhile an eternity 
of white birds and tarps. Something is coming. 
I know because I asked for it. I am asking
about love. I saw the birds so I know 
the answer, but let me hear it 
from you. A lighthouse has lights 
and boats are always crashing.
The wheat knows something we don’t.
About bodies, about pressing, about the fish 
the birds share. About how long it’ll be 
and when to stop looking.

Offering

In the snow, anything
could be anything. Yesterday,
Marie fell on the ice
and the lights blinked on
in every home. The secret,
I tell her, is to walk
without lifting your feet. 
You have to shuffle.
All November, I practice 
shifting my weight.
And each year, I forget
how late the snow comes,
worried that this year
will be the first snowless
one, the one I write down.
But the snow comes and goes
brown like open fruit 
and the birds go
wherever birds
are supposed to go
in the winter and when Marie fell, 
she fell on a street
like any other street. She fell
like anyone would.
It might not be like this again, 
I know: streetlights looming
like a suture, the thrill 
of the cold. Someone falling,
eyes closed. She lifts
her hands to me,
palms out, an open crest
for someone else’s prayer. Her hands
are scraped. Against the snow, 
there is no blood.