All Going the Same Direction

by C.J. Francis

The train passes through the tunnel onto the bridge. Brighter than coffee. Eyes open. It’s the feeling of stepping into my second grade class. Red obedient match-heads sitting at desks. Everyone could watch me.  Everyone was watching me. No one had burned yet.

There’re three Jewish women in wigs and hats and tights in heavy shoes and the sudden stopping of summer and the man on the sidewalk that died post-coital kissing his cane. That was earlier. You
missed it. I watch through the window at mile-high clouds on steroids. I  watch them grow past square Solomon steel ready to chop the math out of branches.

Who’s gray with the mustache and the small glasses, too old for his face? He makes a living mailing in witty picture captions to Reader’s Digest, Squire,  Fisherman’s Monthly. This week he remains unpublished. He keeps the clippings in a Nike box. He sells rechargeable batteries on Ebay. I’m certain.

Three white girls. Average age: thirteen. All eating bananas. They imagine the insides of men and giggle, cackling before their time. They chew delicate and slow, eyes wide for the searching. Can’t keep up the act. Laughing. Can’t finish. No one’s watching.

There are beggars, but are they worth mentioning? Aren’t their fingers covered in the same sickness as 1593? You see. There’s plague in the red under their eyes. This could be China, Alaska, Harlem in
1932. Amplifiers, boxes, bags, cans, children are helpful accessories…the need is in the asking and entirely the same. Bread, water, heroin. Talk to them like it’s a business meeting on Wall Street. Watch them pull the stained hat lower to hide, turning to face the window while you speak, turning to work their jaw in privacy. You’ll never know their stories because their eyes are wild animals. They don’t know how to be talked to. Ignore them like they’re used to.

You can feel yourself falling out, aching to get poor. Only for a second.  Dismiss it as a twitch of a muscle. Buy a new pillow. Dream of your teeth falling out and tell your therapist. I’m sitting here. Keep your shoes clean. They took a week. I’m staring. Think about living on wilted lettuce, dirty plates and undercooked phonetics. Think about a sink full of black water. Reach your hand in. Forget about your hand. You lost it. Lose the deal anyway.

Is it time to think about rain? Will the streets drink or drown? Can you swim? Can you dive? Is it possible you’re thirsty for anything but coffee, water, filament, dust, plastic patches; your own elastic,
smarting heart? There’s a polite woman with her eyes out looking at you, looting your privacy with her smell.

What do you think will go first? Your testicles? Your inner ear? Smelling the leprosy the land has caught, you wonder at the refusal of money to sprout in place of corn, in place of weeds, in place of
warts on her hands stained with coffee. Will this line—will the world end before you touch her?

Are you alone? Am I? Are you standing in a huddle of nine while doors open automatically; where you are a hundred times richer than both arms you’re touching, twenty-seven cents poorer than the woman who didn’t honor your fare? I’m still here. I’m wearing the same socks as your sister. Your sister is in the next car, pretending she’s running this fast, whistling the roar of street under her
heels.

I’m not getting off. My feet are stuffed with sawdust. Yours are getting smaller slowly. What time is it? Is this train going to – How do I get to – Our fingers are specific and run on tracks. This train ends and
yesterday never happened. It’s going. I’m going, Where are you going? Pick up the  paper. Can you tell me you think I’m crazy? Can I tell you? You’re still reading. Find me. Pick a side. Decide we’re all going in the same direction.

           

C.J. Francis is a recent transplant from the South. Her poetry has appeared in "Dyed in the
Wool."