History Lesson on the Night Train (poem)

From Series Bible
Jump to: navigation, search

Summary

Text

I saw you on the night train to Glaston,

pencil in your hand and marking history
as it passed in scattered beams breaking
darkness under scattered stars.
A woman sat in the seat before you, facing you—
she was old, her lines were tired, but her eyes were bright—
to ask what it is, this marking down of history
like stainless steel tines pressed down into meat
so you can taste it. And you looked at her and blinked.
You did not see the woman sitting in the seat behind you,
back to your back, hand stretched upon your image
on nighttime glass—
she was young in her own image, but
reflections cannot be trusted in the mirror or the glass,
not like pencils marked in primary accounts,
not like tales of night; no,
she was only visible in nighttime glass,
a dangerously weak reflection covering reflection
with young-looking fingers—
as you blinked at a woman
not her.

Your voice stuttered like the flicker of bright candles,

not like your marking hand so steady,
as bright beams breaking through the darkness
on the night train to Glaston when it jerked to a halt
and we waited in our seats as you blinked at the woman—
What is it, this writing? this marking down of history,
this making now of histories, personal—
who waited.
The jerk made us silent, imposing like shadows
beamed through the darkness,
beamed through the bright beams
of Republic enforcers, bound by their treaties,
by softly, darkly whispered promises under starry nights.

You did not see me—teller, taker—

on the night train to Glaston as Republic men
in dark blue coats beneath their bright and yellow beams
of light and ’neath the starry skies of darkness
boarded and asked with the woman facing you—they asked,
What is it, this marking down of history
like tines of heartless steel that men may taste
and even remember? What is this, this writing?—
And you answered because you were a man of them,
a man of the Republic in this new, most brave of ages,
because you carried your credentials
as a marker down of history,
because you smoothed over their lies and made them
sink into my gullet like their words were only history—
We have the right to check this train;
we have the right to check your passage
(though we live in new and braver ages,
where the cities are the kingdoms
and the kingdoms are the cities
and they had no right to ask of us who rode the train).

You did not see me—thief, remaker—

or my struggle deep beneath this violated skin,
could not see the ash that marked these fingers
staring into nighttime glass at your reflected face
or feel the way I saw you with two gazes—mine, not mine
(they do not tell you this when speaking of the ashen:
they never told us what they did not know, that men
and woman whose skin had learned to heal,
whose skin had learned to kill,
were always riding on a two-way street).
You did not see me breathng in,
then breathing out—
I felt I could not breathe, not in this skin,
for it was mine
but the words bubbling up within my throat and brimming
like the loss of all that meat I tasted in your histories,
it was not mine; it was a woman’s—
she was not facing you or sitting on this
train beneath Republic beams and scattered stars
and darkened skies as you marked history
with your pencil and she joined in asking you,
What is it, this marking down of histories, personal?

The ash was in your pencil, on my skin—

I could not tell myself it different,
that maybe I had met the woman elsewhere,
elsewhen, not knowing I would come to sit a woman
back to your back, staring you in the glass;
I could not tell myself the other,
that maybe I had lost my blood in gutting dark Republic notions
and a woman poured her life like ash into my skin:
I could not hate you, could not love you
(one less one is perfectly equal to zero), could not banish
from this violated ashen skin the way she knew your half
reflection and knew you were a man of the Republic
that smoothed the lies and marked the histories in primary accounts—
and made them true.

You did not see me—blooded, breaker—

smoothing down my skirt with the same hand
that smoothed down memory of another
and smoothed the glass to see you better,
that smoothed the lies back down their gullets
and shattered their installation
earlier in the night—
for we must keep our treaties
bound on their enforcers
and keep them from the wilderness they used to own,
the nights they used to claim;
this is the night train to Glaston,
of Glaston,
not the Thorn Republic,
not their yellow beams.


And what made me better than these men whose eyes,

gliding off of women—one old, one rather young—
neither dressed for nighttime raids and both
with perfect passage papers and the perfect alibis?
What made me and mine right to force our will
on your Republic, on the space between the cities,
and forbid you of your land?
My claim was in the blood—
have you listened to the ring of steel and marked their
histories on your ashen’s skin?
have you seen us cold and splintered, spilt? do you
understand her name?—
for I am blood spilt from the children that they slaughtered
to make the living weapons we have been,
and I am blood shed from parents
killed to take their daughters, take their sons,
take their twins;
I am blood from all our victims, all they who fell beneath the
outstretched hand of the Republic, they who fell beneath the
laws they could no other way enforce,
and I am blood from all the handlers
who could not enforce against their weapons,
us, the monstrous children.
My claim was in the blood,
for I had shed no blood that night
when I shattered their installation, when I
cracked it into pieces, when I
broke their walls in pieces and
my claim was that their men
could don their dark blue coats, step out into the darkness
of a starry night and stop the night train to Glaston
search among the markers down of histories,
the women old and rather young,
and ask me questions they had trained me once to answer
without answering—and live.
My claim was that I saw you on the night train to Glaston,
with another woman living underneath my skin—
(for when she poured her life in ashes
into my life in blood,
I lived)
a woman I know loves you,
a woman who would stare in your reflection—
and could have challenged all these men in their blue coats,
brought chaos on the men of the Republic and the cities
to defend my life, to finish what I started;
and I was on the train to Glaston.

I saw you, pencil in your hand and marking history;
you did not see me—teller, taker—on the train.