Last Train to Belingham

In honor of Valentine's day (A Day Late) Here's a poem I wrote for my wife, before we were married. i hope you enjoy it!

Last Train to Bellingham

Again

the train is stopped.

Sixty miles out of Portland

and we've been stopped

for thirty minutes.

Now we're going again,

and now we're stopped

again.

We're letting another freight train pass.

Three kids next to me-

(oh, Lord God, bless their mother)

The crunching of a potato chip bag,

nickels flung against my chair,

disobedient little monsters!

I scowl at them not hiding my contempt.

Their mother looks

(tired)

at me,

ready to leave the

little monsters on the train.

A bag of chips just exploded next to me.

They are all over the floor.

The carpet is greasy and crumby.

I don't help pick up.

The bag was exploded by Dylan Thomas.

The eldest- a girl-

left her books

in the locker at the train station.

I'd kill for a cigarette.

I like the train whistle-

and the guy with the disheveled pink hair

and pink scarf and

lime green shirt and

corduroy jacket-

and the teriyaki chicken

rice bowl

I had for dinner-

and Puget Sound out the window

to my right-

and the book I'm trying to read between

prepubescent outbursts.

I'm glad that I'm not driving.

Again.

It's 5:00- rush hour-

and if I were driving

I'd still be stopped

in that asphalt gridlock, nicknamed “Seattle.”

But at least now I can have beer.

Oh, my darling

I love you so.

Tomorrow we move you to Portland.

and I'll be driving the U-Haul

past these same rail lines.

Stuck in traffic-

and wishing for three little monsters

instead of traffic jams.

And never will I have to make this trip

without you.

Again.

View the original here, along with many of my other poems.