Metamorphosis on Metro North
The water slips across gray ice and spills
into widening lake gaps. A sailboat
is anchored in frozen water, waiting
for April release. An egret stands,
one legged, on the melting surface and
three swans paddle where the waters have
escaped. The sky is pale like the ice.
Passengers on a train running north
stare out at colorless landscapes.
At a station, the conductor, holding
a moon-shaped ticket puncher stops punching
when he sees out the window a woman
taking root. She sends her toes down, down beneath
the train tracks, grasping, grinding at the soil
and cement, her eyes turning inward and
combining with her heart, her face sprouting
into extra limbs, skin hardening and
darkening and growing knots where once
she had only freckles. And high, higher
she reaches up towards the pale sky with
fingertips budding, opening to the white
liquid sun. She expands at the same rate
as the train slips away so in the eyes
of the conductor, she grows without
getting larger. An osprey settles there,
on her right forefinger, and surveys
the train snaking through the breaking
ice and his reflection in cold water.