October

One day
I will not get off the train,
leaving my bed unmade and Scorpio
slung across my shoulders.
I will count my change,
catch the bus down town, some town,
eating the freedom of a one-way ticket.
One day
I will wrap my ankles to survive a long trek
in withering shoes, carrying goldenrod seeds,
scattering milkweed as knees brush sumac leaves.
My bags have been packed for years,
each day they grow lighter,
like sidewalk chalk in the rain.
One day
I will shimmer like sunset.

Old Jack Kerouac, let's split a piece of apple pie-
you know the weight of nothing in your pockets.
Tonight let's sleep in the musty lungs of a haystack down the road,
let's sleep dizzy with hunger, pricked by raw rotting gold (one hundred thousand spikes
of the railroad we've found ourselves to ride).
I know in the morning you'll be gone.