Commute
October 20, 2010
Morning-dark and chill Friday
May, Thursday June, November
Monday, we ride the train.
It’s what we do, how we go.
Each day, we ride the red line,
sometimes the blue.
We are breasts, ass and womb,
bloodless crone, girl-child
green, a bound wife.
We carry baggage—
crammed backpacks and totes
that overflow, purses that bulge
with jars of war honey, lullabies
antler-carved, tins of bitter
jasmine, cunts of bone.
We bring with us what we must.
R.A. Dusenberry lives in the Pacific Northwest with a cat that isn’t her cat. She loves to garden, hates turnips and is ambivalent about plaid. She is also the Art Editor of Soundzine.
Categories: The Crowd
R.A. Dusenberry
qarrtsiluni 
Cool poem filled with nice sounds.
Love the idea of women weighed down by their burdens, yet still traveling as a group, united.
Thanks, Dee
wow, this poems stirs the pot, the train. jars of war honey is brilliant. this opportunity to listen to you read your own work is shivering good stuff.
The sounds are truly gorgeous but it is the language and its conveyance of the timeless and quintessential women (working or otherwise),accomplished by metaphor woven seamlessly with reality that continues to draw me into this poem,just to experience its power. Very nice work!
I aspire to use the “c” word this perfectly, Annie — placement, meaning, the climax of momentum. The poem is much more than that, of course, in what it says about to totality of a woman’s experience. We’re all different yet carry the same burdens, the same joys. Powerful stuff!
Such a powerful depiction. Like a picture by Bosch!
This one is a stunner.