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Selected Poems
by Jessy Randall
The Melancholy of Trains
This was not written on a train
but afterward.
It is not about riding a train
but being in the place you were going
once you get there,
and knowing
you will have to take another train
to get home again.
The ruby slippers of the Amtrak ticket
click and click together in my purse.
Wishing is useless.
You have to be left alone
to get home.
Sex and Memory: A Pantoum
I have not seen you in five years
I am waiting at the fountain
you were my first true love
I am afraid you will not come
I am waiting at the fountain
and you are playing the piano
I am afraid you will not come
you are whispering “give me a kiss”
and you are playing the piano
while we look in the windows
you are whispering “give me a kiss”
I kiss you
while we look in the windows
and your hair is still red
I kiss you
I bring you a drink of water
and your hair is still red
after five years
I bring you a drink of water
it is all I can bring you
after five years
now the bed is filled
it is all I can bring you
what have I learned?
now the bed is filled
with your beautiful snoring
what have I learned?
I want to say I love you
with your beautiful snoring
and all the love in this room
I want to say I love you
instead I write you this pantoum
Heart
I wrote a poem about your heart
but it was really my heart.
All the words were backwards
and covered in spinach.
I wrote a poem about my heart
but it was really your heart.
When I finished, it got up and walked away
jumped onto the trampoline and out the window.
Someone’s heart is in this poem
with a half-congealed name and a
half-missing body.
Whose heart is it?
©2001 by Jessy Randall
Jessy Randall is Curator of Special Collections at
Colorado College in Colorado Springs. Her poems have
appeared in Antietam Review, Mudfish, and Pif, and she
writes regularly for Verbatim: The Language Quarterly. See an
online illustrated collection of her poems at
The 2River View.
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