by Frances Koziar
She waited
every Friday, face
as lined as the old tracks,
joints creaking
like the wood
of her bench
Some spoke
to her, some asked
why, but she would only
smile sadly and say:
Waiting. I
never asked, knew it
the moment I saw her,
punctual
as a clock, recognized,
maybe, that look
in her dusty
old eyes. Everything
must have changed, I
thought, perhaps
not the bench
but the train, the people,
the conductor: too young
to have weathered all
those years, too bright
to know how grief
can seep into your flesh
across the decades, sing
a melody too painfully
beautiful for you to just walk
away. I watched,
how she twirled
that old golden band, how
she barely seemed to see
what she stared at, but I never
asked, never
joined her as I should have,
because my love hadn’t gone
by train
FRANCES KOZIAR has publications in 25+ literary magazines, and is seeking an agent for a diverse NA/YA fantasy novel. One of her poems shortlisted for the 2019 Molotov Cocktail Shadow Award Contest, and her poetry has appeared in Acta Victoriana, Snapdragon, and Thin Air Magazine. She is a young retired (disabled) academic and a social justice advocate, and she lives in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.