Back then, when visiting New
Jersey was still important,
my train got delayed every time.
Penn Station, New York. Flooding on the tracks.

I keep on missing the Siemens ACS-64,
her metal carapace-shell
unforgiving and beautiful
the same way big, green, figeater beetles are.

I’ve had months to miss
her, months to miss rattling my skull open
against the windowpane, so
I just practice remembering how it felt.

I cried myself to sleep every night that summer and

 

I only felt the fever finally
leave me when I started wearing tights under my pants,
wool socks over my tights.

 

These days, my face keeps getting red
and hot when I laugh,
like how I felt sitting in the trunk of my car,
legs swinging, when he stood between my knees
and hit me when I asked.

 

I dream about the sting and wake up
sweating it out.

 

I like driving now, but I didn’t then.
I’ve stopped taking the train down the
northeast corridor line. Now, I keep my windows open on I-95
South, even though I don’t need to be in New Jersey anymore.

 

When I pick up my friends from the train station,
I just look. Siemens ACS-64, her metal carapace-shell unforgiving. I
practice perverting it the same way I practice

 

holding that sweaty, hot fever in my mouth.