One of Us
November 8th, 2006
By Archived Story
Through skin translucent her heart
beat like a small strobe light.
Downstairs her mother kissed her
slippery cheek, a red brand of initiation.
She wondered why someone with scales and webbed toes
lived in open prairie, the grass rubbing like
chalk and nails against bare legs, with trains
casting lines into the depths of the wide continent,
and long whistles into the night — She spent the day
drinking the rain, something sliding into her
rounded and present, a question mark.
At the greyhound station her skin
stretched and rang — the late dampness,
the slight steam as she entered the bus
into the heat of eyes and breath
everyone lurching outward,
outward altogether hooked
on the dark magnet of freeway.
These were ocean people; sleeping
ocean people, in the black engine hum of night.
