The Evening Train

Patience, Prudence and Hope are waiting on wooden benches at Pacific Central, Train and Bus Station. Prudence is plaiting Hope’s long, wiry hair into small ropes. She ties the frayed ends in rubber bands. Patience sits still and upright, her canvas bag under her arm she is thinking about how much she detests Jack Kerouac, a tattered corner of On the Road just barely visible in Hope’s coat pocket. The depot echoes deeply with the sound of a child crying from the farthest westerly side of the building. The Amtrak is late. Many eyes are trained on the giant four-sided brass clock, suspended from the cathedral-like vaulted ceiling’s center. Their ears are somewhere east, anticipating the clatter of a two stroke, 16 cylinder Engine down the line.

Untitled

tea

dainty sandwiches fit
perfectly into thin fingers
over thin lips/
it's very very important
that the crusts are all removed

everybody salsa!

Patience is heavy set and slow moving. She has wide hips that sway and a gentle way about her person, you know, soft spoken. Olive skin and green eyes, she smells of garlic and her sure-footed steps make small quakes when she passes. Patience is always well-dressed. Prudence is small-boned and bird-like, her cheekbones angular, her arms like white ribbons. Hope goes by unnoticed, she is plain and powdery. She stirs the air and a frosty dust settles over everything.

Patience, Prudence and Hope
walk into a bar

(all good jokes start with a bad bar)

Patience hastily downs
a quart of tequila
and starts makingout
with Prudence – she cups
Patience’s breast in
her left hand as
Hope looks on mortified,
heads turning, the three of them
glide to the center
of the bar and
the dance floor closes around them.
Patience grabs Hope
by the hand and
twirls her ‘round and ‘round –
Prudence thinks it’s all
a bit too much
and requests a KD Lang song,
“Constant Craving” but
the crowd is calling for
the Rolling Stones and
the weight of their
demand crushes
Patience and her
delicate/simple Hope – Prudence
being the only one left standing, one
ribbon hand wrapped around the DJ

moleskine

she has a heated center

expanding into all her

corners - she bubbles

like cider with

candlelight life (a flickering

glow) careful to keep dark

all her darkest parts

For Heather and her Sister

Petals open like small hands
the yellow fuzz of pollen
warms the centre and
while flowers
just cannot be forever
they live in generations.
Soft soil holds seed pods
in a damp embrace and
the children of flowers
are turning inside them,
green tails push against
the brown skin --
all roots begin in the dark,
while flowers end in the sun.