Agnes, you are on the wrong train
in the wrong city, moving
at the speed of trains. Each station
takes and gives and bids you
not a prayer. Rough wool-muffled
curiosities crowd around. They keep
their judgments bundled tight.

Agnes, today it is
and isn’t snowing. The light you’re in
is unbecoming, bleeds the glow
out of your sorrow. It reveals you
as some ordinary saint, youth fallen
from on high, your face
a wordless shock, an earthly sallow.

Agnes, the trees can’t bear
your mysteries. Skinny-shorn
of their first innocence, they stand
back from crackled glass. They sip
the winter sweetness of the blue,
they stare after endless days of
endless girls who disappear.

Agnes, your abandoned lamb
has crossed your abandoned
tracks, though you refuse
to face the truth he holds head on.
Today you want and dare not want
to leave his softness to an Agnes past.
You don’t yet know the tunnel comes up fast.

---

Image: “Ma ma se, ma ma sa, ma ma coo sa” from The Dollar Store Estate Sale Collection