History Lesson on the Night Train (poem)
From Series Bible
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.
- with another woman living underneath my skin—
I saw you, pencil in your hand and marking history;
you did not see me—teller, taker—on the train.