I never meant to leave you.

The train huffing and my
mother stern, crackling
like the German conductor
to keep up, get up the stairs.

My breaths like emphysema.

I sat next to my sister,
who wide-eyed the tracks
wizzing by and people waving.

I never meant to leave you.

In the next aisle I glimpsed
my father’s skittish
smile he mustered
for my tuckered mother,
but she looked away.

As though they suffered
from a bad flu that hitched
a ride and didn’t unhitch.

I clawed my way to a high
berth, stared at the blanched
sky darkening. I drowned
in unquiet sleep, was startled
by a pitch from something
in the black forest
that smacked the window.

Naked trees streaked by.

Giant broomsticks with broken-
off twig fingers that scraped out
debris from eye sockets
when old people were dying.

I didn’t fall back to sleep.

The train hurtled through
that forest towards the litter
of a city. I never meant to leave you.

We didn’t even kiss. I stuffed a packet
of my poems into the pocket
of your jeans. You handed me
your jack knife,
a rough D carved on the red handle.
I traced it on that train
throughout that night:

D for Dear, Dear, Dear.