Crossing Nevada
       

The headlight of a train I'm watching
through open blinds never gets any closer.
The last light eases out of the day,

Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart on TV.
Next to our hotel, a Ferris wheel
spins an invisible thread. You love old movies,

the man with a white suit jacket and bow tie,
with a past like a trunk he can't put down,
the woman's beauty sharp as broken glass, the expanse

between them fraught with barroom tables,
conversations, half-finished drinks, how the two
find their way, planets falling into orbit.

You step out of the shower, your body
fresh as a manzanita after a good rain.
What am I worried about? Cars make their way

along the highway, eyes following eyes
into blackness. There's so much space, so much
numb distance, numbered doors lining

empty hallways, the ice machine's sharp thunder,
hours settling into their folds while in casinos
people drift like paper boats on separate ponds.

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Copyright © 2021 Brian Satrom All rights reserved
from Starting Again
FinishingLine Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission