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Published: Sun Apr 15 2007
Eva Lundsager, Were now like (detail), 2021, oil on canvas
Night Travel

First lose the light, then the train,
and as the great boxed-in shadow of yourselves takes out whole cornfields,
wordlessly agree to right-crossed journey-legs.

Corn. What’s it to you, now
your shadow snaps in half the flood-lit steeples? Unvisitable towns
wave their plastic welcome mat at your backs.

Arrival is the new horizon.
Near the door—to what?—the young stuff their ears and mouths.
When the little trolley rolls up with drinks you think,

tea, what is it? Still here
in seven settings of the sun? That’s when you’ll end diversion,
use words to decide who mates with who

and who gets the last moth-eaten rind.
Then it’s time to pool your languages, choose one for housekeeping,
               one for games,
one to describe the slightest changes in weather.

See what's inside AGNI 65

Sarah Wolfson is the author of the poetry collection A Common Name for Everything (Green Writers Press, 2019). Her poems have appeared in TriQuarterly, AGNI, The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Fiddlehead, PRISM international, and elsewhere. Originally from Vermont, she lives and teaches writing in Montreal. (updated 10/2019)

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