On the Train West

Katrina Kaye

I pass the time thinking of clothes drying on the line, a breeze dancing the arms of a shirt. I think of a girl reading a book on her bed, lying on her belly, feet swaying back and forth, back and forth like unheard beats of a metronome. I think of an ocean just beyond sight with dark waves and white froth as it reaches and pulls, reaches and pulls.

To pass the time, I suck on hard candy, drink a local beer, and pretend to understand purpose, but I only know the rustle of wind, broken glass in the aisle, a little girl’s squeal and laugh, and the sound of rain as it breaks from the clouds which have hung heavy all afternoon. At once, it becomes music.

I wonder where the hopeful and heart beat are finding comfort tonight. The train seems to go on forever and the destination has long been forgotten. It’s easy to forget where we are going as the years creep up and over us. It’s easy to follow the familiar track without much thought or question. It’s easy to just hold your hand out into the wind and feel the world pass by without much thought for anything else.

There is nothing to prove. If we have learned anything, it is that the sun will rise eventually, regardless of whether or not we howl at the moon.

Things I Carry

Katrina Kaye

I emerge from the darkness of my underworld
carrying a lantern and a handful of sunflowers.

In my back pocket are all the poems that have ever touched my heart;
in my boot a hidden twenty-dollar bill for emergencies.

Wrapped around me is every piece of advice my mother ever gave me
and every life lesson she never realized she impressed upon me.

I carry the music of Mozart humming in my throat
and the rare, honest smile of my brother in my memory.

I carry the good and the bad, the ashes of my fire and the hope for better,
a wooden box of mementos from the people I once knew and once knew me.

I carry the acceptance for what I cannot change
and a stubborn hope to change what I can.

I carry everything and nothing.
My hands remain forever empty and open.

Reflection

Katrina Kaye

sometimes I don’t recognize my reflection
you might take that as metaphor

                        but it’s not

and someday it will happen to you

change is unavoidable
time catches up to us all

                        eventually

transforming the shape of our features
pressing what was into what is
illuminating a spot or deepening a crease

it happens a little each day
until at some point you find yourself
seeing a stranger in the mirror

and thinking

                        what is it I have become?