You Are Safest in This Car - Ben Nardolillee

poem read by Timothy Arliss OBrien

You Are Safest in This Car
Ben Nardolillee

Calling this a roomette seems unfair, limiting it

to the simulation of a hotel’s four stationary walls,

a brief survey of the assigned territory reveals 

potential hiding in this slice of a train car, it is more

than just an insufficient efficiency to sleep in, or a prison

where I am sentenced to watch the world roll on by

After the door is closed, there is potential to relive

the minor spells and adventures of childhood,

when I could transform any sufficiently well-lit nook

into a portal for places lost or yet to come,

conjuring up a passport to get through an afternoon

of suburban drudgeries and other powerless situations

Though I bought the ticket and chose this ride,

I still slip away, drifting as a cosmonaut in a capsule,

followed by scenes of the anchorite life, until

the blue curtains over the bed become my Bedouin tent,

and when it is time to leave for the dining car, 

I imagine that a phalanstery or kibbutz awaits me

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