Driving Home

by Kaili Doud

We could call it an orb like many others have,
     the November sun—great and glowing

as it breathes marigolds in sparkling sheets
     over the damp city asphalt.

This evening is cold and branchy,
     and that orb is setting like a sinking chin,

dusting fricatives of goldish light over this tourist trap
     we call Earth.

Were we so lucky to be a mystery like Mars,
     or an endless anger like Jupiter,

we could call it cruel, or not enough.

Fiat Lux on the 4:36 Amtrak

by Kaili Doud

We—who stand on weathered brick
and wait,
in reflection of birds on a power line
as the sun slumbers yet, we
with rolling suitcases
and shoulder bags, books stuffed in places
they cannot breathe, and tickets
embossed with clammy thumbprints
and a bent, tired signature—
we can only hope that the members
of our incongruent and anonymous flock
will make it just far enough
to join us on our journey,
but not our seat assignment;
to smile breath tooth and lung,
but not on us;
to reflect, to read, to arrive
where they need to,
and where we do as well:
to light and purpose
and hot coffee, god-given or stroke
of luck, so long as our hands
have grip left in them to unstow our luggage,
fold our newspapers;
so long as it is morning when we make it there.