Billings
We make our way through the stinging hail and encroaching
darkness to the train. You've no shoes and a pail of mushrooms; pungent and
still warm from the field. You stumbled
along the way and now your knees are bright like strawberries. As we board; yellow
light engulfs us. The conductor, consults the sky, his palm,
then his wrist and we lurch forward down the line.