Past My Stationary Window

More than anything I wanted him to
get well, so I stayed up all night doing

nothing about it, hoping on angels.
That’s what we do when we’re lost, wait to be

saved as if there were unsubsidized trains
to take us anywhere. What else can you

do when the Boardroom’s packed with shareholders
wanting to cash out their portfolios

and finding autism spread among all
their savings like tobacco? Easier

to play the music loud than to realize
you have stopped singing, replaced with prayers

that are never answered. I get it but
have no time to act; I’m busy being

grateful, a practice that provides me with
the timetable of places to go in the

order of the stops along the line, small
depots I’ll glimpse in the dawn if I am

looking, haven’t crashed while the rest of the
world moves past my stationary window.

***

While You Are Sleeping

While you are sleeping, everything unravels,
knots disappearing, crumples flattened from
paper, good as new. You relax your face, grow
that inch you have lost, flat on your back and
stretched between worlds, suspended while each of your
cells greets others, embraces the sulpher
which makes the rounds like janitors on shift.
Your blackboards are wiped and the chalk-lined in
rows, the slide on your playground gathering dew.
How easy to prefer this place, with the
door in the wall you can just step through to meet
your lover, return to your life at dawn.

***

Sandra Kolankiewicz’s poems have been accepted by London Magazine, New World Writing, Into the Void, Crannog, BlazeVox, Gargoyle, Prairie Schooner, Fifth Wednesday, and Per Contra.  Her book Turning Inside Out was released by Black Lawrence Press. Finishing Line Press has published The Way You Will Go and Lost in Transition. When I Fell, a novel with 76 color illustrations, is available at Web-e-Books.