Desires of Unknown Origins

by Benjamin Katz





1.

there is something about an old weathered farmhouse

slanting with the land, roof caving in,

that makes me want to jump off the train and

               roll down the hill and



build a life here.



I feel there could be answers

here, where the land is low, fields wide and skies open,

everything that is hidden must be

hidden in plain sight.



there is something about it, and yet, I remain

in my seat. to my left, a man wakes with a start, fears he has

missed his stop. across the aisle, a woman lets her heavy head

fall on the shoulder of a stranger.



outside my window the world spins,

               blurry images on an

               old-time movie reel, since dented and forgotten



our eyes: fixed on our laps, our seat-cushions,

our garbage-laden tray tables





2.

aboard this vessel, I am no longer of this world. I am

surging through it, against it,

each town an eyeblink,

my own face unseeable from outside

diesel fuel and station coffee, now lukewarm,

fill my veins.



four hundred miles to go and I have to wonder—

how far can steel beams bend before they break?

outside the station in a dirt-road, two-street town,

they warp and bow under the weight of passing trains

the ground heaves, gravel jumps and

sputters in its wake.



               and that is only what the eye can see.



there is a trembling inside—invisible, electric.

my feet fuse to the floor of the car

and they, too, rattle against the earth,

kick up dirt and gravel,

grate against rusting metal, strip it silver





3.

it is barely morning, the world still cold and hazy-eyed

when everyone ambles onto the platform

for their fifteen-minute 6 am cigarette

maybe it is the strangeness of this place,

               or the stillness,

                              or the solitude,

that urges me to claim this desperate ritual,

to feel the cool air on my face,

to part my lips and suck



if I gave in, exhaled,

would I become a Marlboro Man?

would my hands grow rough and knowing,

would the low skies open up and swallow me whole?

or would I shuffle back aboard moments later,

untransformed?





4.

one hundred miles to go, and I

wonder still. The tracks are rough now, and

the car sways to a jagged rhythm, each breath shallow.



hands brushing the backs of headrests,

I walk the length of the car, then back

at the exit, I PUSH where it tells me to, grip the

candy-striped handles as leaning tracks test my balance



the gangway: slick with rain beneath my shoes, the squeak of

rubber soles on metal like whining train-on-track below

my knuckles: white as stripes on the safety grips, the only

stable things in sight




my stomach: shaking earth, sputtering gravel



everything: howling




then, we clear the turn. the train rights itself.

I push the next door open and I am under glass again.

families stare out panoramic windows like

television screens—eyes glazed over, hands in the popcorn bowl



I walk the length of this car, then back. I see

dark clouds and the first hints of higher ground. I see

sunken land, more empty houses caving in.





and then we blink, and then they’re gone.





back to University & College Poetry Prizes