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Train of Thought
by Sharmagne Leland-St. John

Snap - Snap...

The wind like a whip
stings my face
bites my hands
lashes my bare legs.

I duck into the subway
drop a shiny brass token
into the turnstile
am swallowed up
by the hustling bustling crowd
a sea of blank faces.

Click - Click…

Goes the train as it races
with me inside
its sterile grafittied womb
upstate
to where you are waiting.

This train speeding north
its windows marred,
cross hatched, scarred
with names and initials
gang symbols
scratched into the glass
by thugs and thieves.

The back yards flying past,
laundry flapping on the lines,
scattered autumn leaves,
abandoned plastic tricycles rotting
in the rain and noonday sun;
rusted out automobiles,
mausoleums and tombstones
proof of our precarious existence.

Tunnel up ahead
children throw rocks
as the train flies by.

Out of the darkness
we are borne into
a better life.


The suburbs
manicured lawns,
expertly trimmed hedges
behind wrought iron gates
Cadillacs and Beamer SUVs
parked in flower edged
perfectly paved
circular drives.

Children on classic
Schwinn Stingrays
pedal up tree-lined streets
in their Benneton shorts and tees
uniting all these fabulous
rainbow colours
as they ride.
Autumn leaves raked
into neat piles at curbside.

In between stations
houses become sparser now,
are replaced by
old barns and kills,
steeples and silos,
green hills and yellow hay fields.

On John Deere's
farmers furrow fallow rows
by now I am dreaming
of my first glimpse of you
on the platform;
the taste of your lips,
your hands on my hips.
I see us in black and white
dashing towards each other
in slo-mo like Douglas and Garbo
the wind in my hair
My heart begins to race
as imagination
places me in your arms
and we reinvent
all the things
which we once held so dear.






 

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