waiting for a train in

Glenwood Springs, Colorado

and the train is late --

sitting on a bench

by the train tracks

looking at the mountains,

sliced section of earth red

topped by layer of green

with clouds marking blue

beyond. This is what I love --

watching people walk

next to cars and trucks

crisscrossing a bridge

above the train tracks

and rushing river below.

This is what I love -- an older

woman with blonde hair and

sunglasses sitting in the sun

smoking a cigarette and

the little boy who just

fell down on the rat trap

nestled against the wall

beside me. When I went

to say goodbye, my niece

showed me a photo of my

dead mother / her grandmother

that I had never seen before.

I burst into tears. My dog

is dying and my dead

mother looked so young,

so determined sitting in

the cockpit of that plane—

with none of the resignation

I saw in her later years.

I had to say goodbye

and now I am sitting

by the train tracks

waiting for a train and

crying. This life

is what I love.

Dell Lemmon lives in Brooklyn and her poems have appeared in The Straddler, WSQ, Mudfish, PMS (poemmemoirstory), Cross Poetry and Washington Square Review.