All Good Conductors
I.
O the screech and heat and hate
we have for each day's commute,
the long wait at the last stop
before we go screaming
underground, while the pigeons
court and shit and rut
insolently on the tracks
because this train is always late,
always aimed at only us,
who when it comes with its
blunt snout, its thousand mouths,
cram and curse and contort
into one creature, all claws and eyes,
tunneling, tunneling, tunneling
toward money.
2.
Sometimes a beauty
cools through the doors at Grand,
glides all the untouchable
angles and planes
of herself
to stand among us
like a little skyscraper,
so sheer, so spare,
gazes going all over her
in a craving wincing way
like sun on glass.
3.
There is a dreamer
all good conductors
know to look for
when the last stop is made
and the train is ticking cool,
some lover, loner, or fool
who has lived so hard
he jerks awake
in the graveyard,
where he sees
coming down the aisle
a beam of light
whose end he is,
and what he thinks are chains
becoming keys.
Copyright Credit: Christian Wiman, "All Good Conductors" from Every Riven Thing. Copyright © 2011 by Christian Wiman. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC, http://us.macmillan.com/fsg. All rights reserved.
Caution: Users are warned that this work is protected under copyright laws and downloading is strictly prohibited. The right to reproduce or transfer the work via any medium must be secured with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Caution: Users are warned that this work is protected under copyright laws and downloading is strictly prohibited. The right to reproduce or transfer the work via any medium must be secured with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Source: Every Riven Thing (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010)