When your train gets lost

MY PAST

I was young and needed the porn but not
the money or the long seasons
of shame or whatever was the burning
sensation I felt in my head
trying to sleep or pretend
I was dead as kids pelted me
with chalky gravel or home-brewed
napalm that I could not,
even in the invidious gravity of such pain,
deny was impressive. Skin
grew back like the grass
in which I slept with all my green
dreams, all my terror
and my pockets full
of stolen salt and the crushed grub
of acorns, poisonous
to humans. There are things
I know of so little worth
I resent them their place
in this pot of meat I go about with
saying my head needs
a hat or a scented pillow
stuffed with the extravagance
of goose flight. So close then to the sky
would not be only blue
pain or the ocean poured
from the nub of a child’s crayon.
I could dream of
one or the other.
Once I wanted wings
and once a getaway car
not to mention
the jet-pack cobbled from a broken vacuum
or the millions needed
for bon voyage
on my own manned luxury submersible
or a zeppelin parked
above our heads and
wavering in the air like escape.