Natural Causes
       

The track was hidden by a line
of junipers. All afternoon
children played in the gazebo.
The sound of a train surprised me.
I sorted, packed, labeled cartons.
Children played. Now and then a train
muffled their laughter. I packed, swept.
Sunlight shifted across floorboards,
climbed stacks of cartons, entered
my father's bed with its folded clothes,
piles of books. Trains shuttled by,
light squinted through trees,
voices diminished, left.
Night arrived. I tried to sleep.
Thanked the trains for their thunder,
the children, in their own beds,
for their concentrated play. Trees
for trying to hide the track,
the track for leading away.

Tweet

Copyright © 2013 Andrea Hollander All rights reserved
from Landscape with Female Figure: New and Selected Poems, 1982-2012
Autumn House Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission