{ Mookie Katigbak: The Telling. }

[delga]

The Telling
by Mookie Katigbak

When I tell you that you have an effect
Upon me you may not intend, and you
Ask me to render, not tell,
I think of cities I have been to
And have yet to see, where at some ungodly
Hour, a train slips through unseen tracks,
All grooved wheels and steam pipes
Announcing neither arrival nor departure
But passage, sure and swift as rain after
A dry spell. In the town square, vendors sell
Candied nuts by the glare of gas lights
And the derelict hit-or-miss of prayers
Everyone forgets to follow through.
When a train passes, the makeshift stalls
Allow the ground its procedural
Shiver, then it’s business as usual.
What’s earth-stopping is the howl
Of a train expressly on its way
To not here. It moans a phantom hunger
All the more terrible because unseen
—Hear it?—This is the sound of all
That rifles through us and does not stay.
Everything is in the details; wail of the train
Through tracks unseen, destination
unknown.
When I show you how you and I
Have more hunger than we know
What to do with, I am telling you
Goodbye before you know it.