Poetry
There's a Possible Person on the Roadbed
Inside the stopped train
growing warm, I watch
the broad wings of noses
speckled with blackheads,
the pink bald spots
starting to sweat. I remember
my summer job, piling dead dogs
into hefty-bags, the fur
sliding off in fistfuls,
or holding an Irish setter
while a needle eased in.
Home, I feared my door would open
before I was done, my pillow a lover
whose white shirt I peeled back.
The one-night stands
those years, I couldn't stop
their struggle and thumping
in my embrace, their dead weight
in my arms. I take a plunge,
I take a wild curl into myself,
I take up residence
with my left hand,
I pluck fuzz from my ears
or stubborn hairs
from my nostrils, keeping at bay
their certain spiral toward the grave.
Fluorescent light inside the train
yellows faces, still I stare
my bland amazement at this fellow’s face
in the smoked glass pane,
full sacs under his eyes
raised like dimes,
the veil of hair hurrying away
reveals my scalp.
I can’t conceal with the loudest shout,
with tricks of memory and skin
(the conductor stating, the passengers
glistening, waiting).
Contributor
Daniel ShapiroDaniel Shapiro's poems have been published in Black Warrior Review, BOMB, Confrontation, The Connecticut Poetry Review, Downtown, Poetry Northwest, Yellow Silk, and other journals. He is the author of "The Red Handkerchief and Other Poems" and "Child with a Swan's Wings," and translator of Cipango, a collection of poems by Chilean poet Tomas Harris. His translations have appeared in many journals including American Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, BOMB, Chelsea, and Grand Street . Shapiro is Director of Literature of the Americas Society in New York City and Managing Editor of Review: Latin American Literature and Arts.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
27. October 17, 1961, a train platform in Dartford, England
By Raphael RubinsteinNOV 2022 | The Miraculous
Living only one street apart in a London suburb, two 7-year-olds strike up a friendship that lasts until they are 11 and one of them moves away. In the years that follow, their school careers diverge (one begins attending university, the other enrolls in a local art school) but their musical tastes are oddly similar, as they discover when their paths finally cross again on a train platform in their hometown.

Steffani Jemison’s A Rock, A River, A Street
By Tara Aisha WillisMARCH 2023 | Art Books
Reading A Rock, A River, A Street is like finding a way through an enigmatic moment of performance: the body is the thing that connects feelings and experiences, moves us through them. It is a train of thought, a largely unvoiced internal monologue to which we are given partial access.
Haruki Murakami’s First Person Singular
By Andrew ErvinAPRIL 2021 | Books
For all our reminiscing, Murakami seems to say, its the things we dont remember that might haunt us the most. After all, memory is itself another liminal space, one where we experience both now and then at the same time. Likewise, finishing First Person Singluar requires thinking back to everything weve just read about these characters lives, and to everything we didnt.
from Eastbound
by Maylis de Kerangal, translated by Jessica MooreMARCH 2023 | Fiction
Maylis De Kerangals Eastbound relates a Russian soldier, Aliocha, attempting to evade military service by hiding aboard a Trans-Siberian railcar venturing from Moscow to Vladivostok. Aliochas determined flight, given the militarys endless reach, has proven to be the only rational response to the dysfunction and brutality of his corps. More than a prescient one-sided tale, Eastbound also depicts a young French woman, Hélène, fleeing an unsatisfactory relationship. In order to successfully flee, each must trust the other, difficult given a strict language barrier. The novels relentless pace is matched by De Kerangals beautiful lyricism. Simple acts, like preparing to step outside from a train car, are written with masterful, close attention.