The Arms of Journey

                        How did we purchase the tickets for this train?   Even the stench of
            our bodies is not as strong as our fear.

                        The blue tattoo numbering the arm of the waitress in the drugstore
            marks me with guilt.   I don't know her.   I fear recognition.

                        I remember her on the bus to Milford because I cannot make the face
            in the dirty glass of the window smile.

                        Behind the face, which is my face, the small towns menace us like
            reefs of gray coral.   Behind us the feverish city.

                        Diesel galleons rust into the dark.   Jackstraw on their decks the bones
            of their sunken captains.

                        It would be cold if we were not pressed so tightly; even the dead
            cannnot lie down.   This ship will survive us.

                        On Christmas in the hotel in Manhattan we made love; in the morning
            I woke up with fever.

                        I imagine us foundering here, the keel of our bus grounded on reefs
            of fact.

                        The truth is elusive, but once found you're stuck with it.   Lies are
            more useful.

                        The arm that steadied your small feet, that held you to her breast,
            that eased you into love.   The tattooed arm.

                        There is no betrayal without love, nothing broken that was not a
            bond.

                        As well question the parrotfish, eater of the houses of coral, his
            knowledge of hatred.

                        Face goggling like a fish, eater of houses, are you inside or outside?

                        I love you.   For a mouthful of food I will deny you.   I am burning.
            I burn and burn.

                        If one is a captain, one goes down with the ship.   If one is not a
            captain, one sinks or swims.

                        I remember the heat of your body so tightly pressed.   The smell
            of sweat.   The feverish journey.

                        This one.   That one.   This one.

                        These are my fingers.   I extend them to you.   In the end you will
            fail as I do.