TrainWrite

The Biker Waiting to Get Home

by Zach Fishel

Conductor’s Note: The following is the first in a series of three poems from the same trip, at the same station, in different parts. Return to TrainWrite on Wednesday, February 15 and Friday, February 17 to continue the journey.

Her hair was the color of a used leather belt

and she stood

with a bottle of cheap Merlot

alongside the train tracks

waiting at the same platform as I,

but heading to Chicago.

Her eyes were rusted barbed wire,

and we laughed about the others,

in pressed khakis

and ties that shined silken

in the flurrying air.

She was coming on a warm drunk and

we talked about how tiresome the road can be at times.

She just finished a two year stint

with the Texas

travelling circus,

and finally gave up writing for an erotica magazine.

We swapped stories

of lost love and battles struggled through

when the whistle blew

and we parted ways.

Some of us are meant for the road,

while everyone else is meant for home.

Zach Fishel is a recent Pushcart Prize nominee and a graduate student at the University of Toledo, where he is working toward an M.A. in Literature. His work has appeared most recently in The Montucky Review, Horrorsleazeandtrash, EarthSpeak, and others. He thinks that sometimes boredom is a poison, and his only speed is go.

Notes

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