poem 2

A kid, no more than four, ran through the train doors
la mama y la tía chattering at him to
go here go there come back stop hey!
but he did nothing but
run and stand and walk and jump.
A kid, no more than fourteen, jived through the same doors
headphones loud in everyone’s ears and eyes and nose
skateboard on hip.
The four year old wanted that skateboard
so he took it
and stood on it
and rolled down the aisle and said
“mama, tía, get back!”
That kid is gonna be mayor one day.
I recognized the beat to the song
blaring from the earphones of the
fourteen-er.
I moved with him. The train rocked and stopped. The wheels got wet
from this morning’s rainfall
and then I recalled how someone asked me
how long until I left
for Minnesota.
I looked at that kid
and then the other kid.
I looked at la mama, y la tía:
beautiful women, yet compact
sucked in with a vacuum seal. Such a combination:
the child on a skateboard on the train
the sisters in polyester in California
the bassline booming, distracting my inner fibers:
this is a catastrophe.
So I got off
that train
and I went home
to be alone.

A