It was little and it was fast and it was nothing.

          In the heavy dark my neck was a fencepost

stringing barbed apologies between my body 

           and everyone else’s. Obscure lessons,

                        whispered the man in the hurricane. 

How bitter the winds were, how they peeled me

            from my skin. How I wanted to be fast and small 

                        and nothing at all.

Help, I thought, I have left my animality

           on the train. Now it snakes between the hills,

                        half-creature exhaling smog, hungry 

                                   for horizon.

                        Once I wore a necklace like that, right down

                                    the center of my chest, and my breasts were

                         hills and my body was navigable 

                                    to everyone but me.

But now the winds have calmed, and the man 

                          in the hurricane is nothing

                                    but a single blinking eye.

I place my finger on the lid, stroke it shut, whisper, 

                                     Sleep. 

Now I leap through doorways without hesitation. 

Now I don’t think about where the train takes 

           the things I’ve left behind.