Mist
Beside the railroad tracks
(…was that fear I heard rising in her voice?)
My hands shoved in my pocket
(…trying to ask, calmly, “Please don’t hang up.”)
I hear my mother’s voice echo. “It’s your fault that I have to be with your father.”
(I know that she was scared. I am too.)
Kicking the gravel, watching it fall, hitting a rock, then hitting a stone
(…trying to reason with me, “Let’s both get some sleep. It’ll be better…”)
Past hysteria, my brain has shut down. I no longer believe in
tomorrow
(“tomorrow”)
(“In surviving”)
In surviving.
(things will get better,” I hear her promise.)
And no longer running, trying to beat the train. I can not speak. I have no voice.
(I heard this so many times before. The promise never fulfilled.)
The bright lights flicker and distort the shadowy figures.
(Her voice so far away; going further away.)
The far off horns, approaching, getting louder, blaring. It is loud enough to wake the dead.
(…”Can you still hear me? I want you please to wait.”)
I imagine the flesh, blood and bones grinding, mixing under the wheels, into the rails
(“Hello? Hello?!”)
I felt a light mist falling just before the dawn.
—Petrovnia McIntosh, Madison, WI
