Year of Drought & Protests
By Tess Taylor
Tonight the train shuts for another death.
Jumper: third this month,
"a rash of copycats," they say
in this hard year of drought & protests.
Beyond us, persimmon sunset.
Horizon, bright as abalone.
Traffic throb on freeways, mussel dusk.
From the station now slow cars
process. A hundred station-goers, all rerouted,
disperse to homes or cabs or friends.
Deep inside these shadows
some collapse. Absent
synapse—tendon—self.
Unrecoverable hub.
We each hurry on, not looking.
Dark is falling. All our taillights throb.
Copyright Credit: Tess Taylor, "Year of Drought & Protests" from Rift Zone. Copyright © 2020 by Tess Taylor. Reprinted by permission of Red Hen Press.
Source: Rift Zone (Red Hen Press, 2020)