"4:17 to Westport"

at a cracked open age of
nineteen
i found my heart
broken by clear weather
on a train platform
or maybe i was
twenty but i certainly was not used to
trains or lungs full of
pins and needles /
of paper-cut sunlight and hopeful anxiety /
of asking buttoned-up men if
this was where i was meant to be going
on a sweetly sad
wednesday in july

it felt almost
unlawful to be moving about in the world
so fluidly, felt so much like
a sin to keep close to my chest
and whisper to my
friends - years later -
the ghost
stories about the enormity of
"anywhere"
but where is
anywhere today and where
is this train:
4:17 is a number that doesn't
mean anything
when it's gone
and i am scared that i am a girl
who will also
mean nothing when i

text myself these words
in a modern tongue and truthful tone and hope not to spill over
quite as much as wine
after a funeral
the train was late and the weather
stuck in my throat like so many words i couldn't say to myself
the station has a name i would have
forgotten had i not written it down /

i hope you will write me down
i hope you will wait for me
at 4:52 and
read my poetry to
friends who do not ask