Boys and Trains

That week, driving past the playground
    with its view of the creek, I thought of bodies
                 but the water there is always full of things it shouldn’t be
                              the trees are tricksters, light and shadow
                                          they’ve taken the form of dead boys
                                                        before. My son was in the backseat.
                                                                      I was eager to get home.

                                                        So when I heard of course I counted backwards
                                                                                          but days tend to flow together
                                                                                 when you have children, except the ones
                                                                      when they are born (him on a Sunday) and the ones
                                                                         I suppose, when they climb the train bridge and

wait

                                and, later, drift downstream.

 

 

 

 

Shannon WinwardShannon Connor Winward is a poet, fiction author, and freelance writer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Analog, Gargoyle, Pop Culture Madness, Literary Mama, and Heiresses of Russ 2015: The Year’s Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction, among others. Her debut chapbook Undoing Winter (Finishing Line Press) is a 2016 Elgin Award nominee. In between writing, parenting, and other madness, Shannon is also an officer for the Science Fiction Poetry Association and a poetry editor for Devilfish Review.

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