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Carrie Friedman
Dusk
Remember
When we got out of the car in
Iowa, and
It was dusk and the sky was
A palette but I didn't tell you so?
Remember
It was dusk and
We stood in the field off
The deserted highway and
You told me
This is Where Murders Happen
And walked back to the car,
Muttering about Children of the Corn,
Waited in the passenger seat,
But I stayed and looked at the sun
Making its final exit for the day,
Corn all around me, thinking:
This is Dusk in Middle America?
I never felt so small as then,
Smiling at the sky,
Squinting out of deference,
And you honked the horn.
Racing Trains
You and me, racing trains --
In my new town you hated --
As far as we decided to go.
Racing each other,
Whomever stopped first lost,
So we got far, got places:
Burbank, Glendale (yet saw nothing,
Save the other's feet),
Keeping up, willing ourselves
Harder, faster. I wish we had simply
Been racing the trains,
Because it wasn't a fair match: you always
Quit first, and I felt bad beating you,
But worse because we couldn't
Keep going together.
"No more racing trains," you said
then walked away, and sometimes,
still, I try to alone, but
stop,
winded,
lost in my own town.
©2008 by Carrie Friedman
Carrie Friedman writes poems, novels, and essays in Los Angeles, and has a monthly column called "Discount Therapy" on madashellclub.net. She is currently working on a non-fiction book. For more information
see her Web site.
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