A Poem on the Evening Train to Milano

Outline the darkness of a city
on the evening train to Milano
with brushes of night
before we travel into the nothingness
of another half moon.

Lines cross this sky with electricity
and information that could explain so many things,
but we have slowed
and we must stop in Reggio Emilia
and wait for some travelers to depart
and others who will join us on the ride.

If only I could speak
the language of these people
perhaps they would understand
what I have done
and what I must do
to shed my skin
and make my way
to a another place
I’ll call my home.

The clock shows how quickly
a life must leave us—
one cell, one second at a time—

before we know it the train arrives and passes on
to another destination with nothing more
than love exchanged between us.

The truth is,
I am not the woman
I was when you met me
nor are you the man
I wanted to make love to last night.
I am not the woman
you will glance up from your book
to smile at absently.
I will never be that good wife again.

These strangers in this strange and beautiful place
see me so deeply under their sleeping eyes,
lulled by the rocking of the train over the tracks
through the invisible countryside.
I take comfort in knowing
it is in the not knowing
that I will find a reflection of myself
in this window streaming with rain
and the cleansing that comes
with a long journey to the west.