One Word

This poem by Tobias Hill leisurely leads you to one word at the very end for a clue how to feel about it, but the word's ambiguity still doesn't absolve you from making up your own mind. Published by Salt





From the Bullet Train

At the far edge
of the arclit terminus
an old man sits in the sunlight
between his backdoor and the tracks,
scooping white pumpkin seeds
from their yellow hollow
with a black lacquer bowl.

Beside me, the businessman’s wife
sleeps with her face averted
from her husband or lover,
not quite smiling. Silence
and slow motion. Her eyes open.
The pupils are
pinpoints of thought.

the carriage leans
into the curve of the track,
picking up speed. Zinc roofs
below the viaduct and blue smoke
from the piano factory —
passed in a moment. The sea
levels the horizon.

“Sashimi. Coffee or tea.”
The businessman eats raw eel
from a polystyrene dish
patterned with copper clouds.
I turn. Outside

a swamp town. Sluggish flats
of rice and buckwheat.
A horse and cart.
By its mother’s side the colt
running on graceless legs,
learning movement
to the sound of the wheel —

Gone. I sleep and wake only
when the businessman’s wife
touches my arm. She points;
bamboo blossom, that flowers
once in every hundred years.

Sallow flowers hung
from a sheaf of spears.