CLAUDIA BURBANK

On the Last Train to Gladstone

Save the punctuation of small, distant lights,
the night is unrelieved, black glass
gives back the sagging face I see in mirrors.
At this hour it's easy to pretend vast swamps
and iron-bound cities don't exist.
Station after station, the doors rumble open:
no one, no one, the way a blind dog
runs straight ahead, stops to listen, runs.
At this hour it's easy to pretend I could run
through empty streets and turn a key and find
my father still snoring like that man over there,
slumped, dreaming of a woman not his wife.
The one who has overshot his stop,
who'll come to, jolted, suddenly wild.