KAT SANCHEZ

Southern Pacific

Bucket

  ISSUE DOS!

Southern Pacific

Long after you,

I slipped into the house

with keys of matted twig.

It nestled

& I knew the train would come.

The engine that could move

under your voice, while I

was a mouth buckled,

it never pronounced.

Dust sifted

& plumed as my fingers

wandered sills, jams

that give way into the yard.

Clouds molted

& the tracks behind the house

stretched under the train

& shrunk back.

It echoed.

No time for the south

at this season.

I fell to your palms

& they held

the long beat of night

when it was birdless.

Bucket

I fill the blocks west.

I use the lake.

(If he drowned on the way to work)

I fill all the blocks

south, north, east,

let the sediment

struggle out and settle.

I sift by in a boat.

He shouts!

(The city rises, rises.)

And makes waves

that lap the boat.

I oar away.

I wait down the street

filling, filling.

His fingers tap the surface.

He hangs on to the ripples

that pull by.

I dip a pane of glass

into the water,

let it crest against my hands,

fill them cupped,

pour it out before he’s thirsty.

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