Poem: The Train to Unattainia

From the book Interplay: Finding the Keys to Creativity

 “You don’t have to understand everything you see. Look for something you can relate to. It’s just taking you on a journey to places you haven’t been before. That’s the important part.”

            --Margaret Wingrove, choreographer

The Train to Unattainia

                            

I inhabit the space inside the wall

after the flip of the switch but before                              

the dark of the bulb

                           

I am a ruthless cowboy semicolon

forever inserting myself into conversations

riding the hum of the intermission

crowd like a sailor, tying silk scarves around

their slow-nodding heads and

running

the rise of the curtain my only ticket in.

The only breath I take (breathe)

comes on the twentieth mile (breathe)

of a thousand-mile drive

when I know that turning around is no longer an option

sunshine blowing through the vents like

powdered sugar

I go to the land where nothing can be had

running down a long hard ribbon of willful disconnect

a palpable lack of direction.

The needle winds its way in and out of the continental fabric

pulling me along to Cheyenne, Wyoming

where my siren, Improvisia

stands upright on a green sidewalk

In one hand she holds a book of songs

in the other a bucket of blue paint

dips the one in the other till the

color bleeds out the notes

She hands it to me with an Andalusian smile and says

Here, it’s the one you asked for

Open it up and

sing, baby, sing

First published in di-verse-city

Austin, Texas
Winner, Second Prize, Austin International Poetry Festival