Journey

27 GIBSON MARGARET GIBSON JOURNEY Our train speeds north along the coast, careens along its ties and rails. I spill my coffee on your shirt. I like the taste of cotton and wet skin. Behind us and our reveries our counterparts, waking in fear of their bodies, smolder. Then the dining cars and towards the rear dark cribs of coal lie open to bright stars. Of course one of us should go sailing out the window like a cosmonaut on a line and float in the updrafts, in the sparks of the wheels and swoop out over the water. Are those islands or distant green Chinese pagodas? The word timbrel comes to mind. There's a ghost of a face on the glass. You answer as the train slows, look: a station where the porter's hands are torn, his skin is cracked, his belly cold. There's blood in the street, women in the soup kitchen, empty kids. The rent's unpaid, the grammar surly. We get off here. It will be better. ...