Immigrant Train, and: Little Demon

IMMIGRANT TRAIN

We spend nights buried in rough blanketswhile large stones, hot from the firebox,sink deep into our mattress. I take a placein the kitchen and when the train stopsa man steals a sheep from a nearby village.I cut its throat, hang it upside downand wait for the bile in its stomach to spoilthe floor before I make incisionsalong its soft belly and legs, then tearits skin apart. The snow fallsheavier and the grandmotherin the first car wants stew tonight.I believe our life will last in the newcountry but one morning you tell methe train isn’t going where you thoughtit was and you leave. You don’t askme to come with you. It gets colderand someone has taken my blanketsand the train continues to empty.Only one man remains in the dining car,rereading the same page from the newspaperhe found on the dusty platform elevenhundred miles back. Where are we going now?But he doesn’t know. Still, I remainfaithful to this course even thoughthere are no sheep left and the grandmotherhas died. I think maybe you are going to comeback. Another woman in the kitchenwears black and weeps over the crinkleof paper skin as she unwraps garlic clovesto prepare what meal she can. Somewherea mullah is reciting prayers. I sit in the lastcar where there is a young man closing his moutharound the white bulb of an opium poppy staring blankly into the wall of ice ahead.Why did I love you so? Why couldn’t I seethere was no tunnel through the mountain?

LITTLE DEMON

Come, demon under the bed,I am not scared of you—your big eyes glossedover with a thick filmof stone. Hell’s paintermust have dipped his brushin liquid onyx and hardenedyour eyes into a foreverblackness before they sentyou here. I have been livingin a land of unkind snow staringinto an endless white sky.I do not rise from bedbecause there is nothing to rise to.There is no sun that streamsthrough the window. No dogbarking. No birds. Not evena single spider crawlinghis body across the wood floor.This place is silent and I have learnedto be silent, too. Even my heart.Yesterday I could not rememberthe face of the woman who gave birthto me, the pebbled skin of a grapefruit,or the wind through maple and magnolialeaves, dogwood blossoms—what was that sound?You and I, little demon,are fading from this world.There is only the recurring dreamyou whisper in my ear when I am asleep.A train on fire in the middleof the ocean. Gray viscousclouds over orange over blue and a Portuguese Man-of-warunderneath. When I wake up,I remove its tentacles wrappedlovingly around my neck.Come, little demon, give meyour hand. There is roomfor the both of us on this bed.I will draw the quilt over us.