Passing Through by D. A. Powell

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend December 17, 2014   Passing Through   D. A. Powell

Watching Picnic again for the umpteenth time. We need more trains. The tin-roofed stations in red brick or the grand multi-track white terminals. Someone left me by train once, tearily, and I never should have let his jive ass back in to collect his things that were stashed in Patty’s room. Patty’s room is the closet. He was a closet case. He was a cliché. He left by train but the train was a bus. Mysteries unfold on trains. Strangers disembark often enough to disrupt your day.   My chief fear on trains is not murder nor stumbling into the wrong berth. There is no wrong berth. My fear is that I’ll have to ride backward into memory. I hate memory. My first train memory is the circus puffing by on its way to winter in Florida. Ever after I stood at the porch and watched the L & N, hoping for giraffes. There are no giraffes in most circuses, so I was obviously a forlorn child. Lonesome whistle. Did Hank Williams wake to the crossing guard blinking its red light across his face at night through a window he hoped someday to climb out. Trains are sad as elephants. Lumbering along. Or pulling down tents.   Can’t blame Kim Novak for wanting to run off with William Holden, especially after seeing him with his shirt off, dancing under the pink and green Chinese lanterns, him moving in—I too would hold on. Even though I’m sure it’s wrong for Kim. It’s wrong for him. Where do people who are wrong for each other meet but in the movies or on trains. Best to meet a man who’s moving. Passing through. Let him ruin your weekend but not your life. That’s what weekends are for.            Copyright © 2014 by D. A. Powell. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “‘Passing Through’ was written on a train but not as part of any kind of residency on a train. It was a short train. It helps if you’ve seen the movie Picnic but hopefully that doesn’t matter.” —D. A. Powell   D. A. Powell’s most recent collection is Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys (Graywolf Press, 2012), which received the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry. He lives in San Francisco. Most Recent Book by Powell   Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys (Graywolf Press, 2012) "If You Must Hide Yourself From Love" by Christopher Salerno "They Were Not Kidding in the Fourteenth Century" by Maureen N. McLane "The Love-Hat Relationship" by Aaron Belz Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038