By Madison
Date: 8 May 2000
baggage at amtrak
You run. Streaks of streamers
flicking like pennants from your past.
Your self-owned punishment smiles
half-amused, half-mastedly back
chalking three more marks to misery
and one more screeching fingernail
across the board.
There's no denial here, baby.
It was all too good for you to feel.
Even the streamers have lost their wind.
Your need to be
unneeded
claims its victory and
pockets its commission.
It sparkles like shopworn sequins
twisted from their threads and dropped
through slatted crates and
could-have bins.
M Madison
8 may 2000
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