by Alex Stevens
Train with Vampire
You’re watching a scene from an old movie:
Antique train: Three diners, one special hunger.
Peter Cushing is the odd one. So.
Four minutes and a secret.
Two menus. Six minutes and a lie.
You believe you know what movie this is.
You know you never saw it. Yet belief.
You watch one question and an inelegant retreat.
The waiter shies away from the hollow-eyed man
who declines a menu. The man concentrates his gaze
on the woman in satin lifting fork to lips.
The body’s largest organ isn’t skin,
but fascia, the membrane for keeping
each organ from muddling the others,
nerves separated bundles sparking.
Saving everything beneath skin
all from dispersion and misguidance.
You’ll never finish the movie.
The boned satin of a Victorian collar is no defense.
The vampire will not concern itself with membranes.
Still, it’s Waterloo you think of,
or Babi Yar—always slaughter.
You’ve been told
your mind moves too quickly into tunnels
from which no train emerges
with its passengers unbroken.
What separates the organs of the spheres
each from each. What keeps stars from
consuming distance. You’ve been told.
Relief escapes you. So.
Devon Miller-Duggan has published poems in Margie, The Antioch Review, Massachusetts Review, and Spillway. She teaches at the University of Delaware. Her books include Pinning the Bird to the Wall (Tres Chicas Books, 2008), Alphabet Year, (Wipf & Stock, 2017), The Slow Salute, Lithic Press Chapbook Competition Winner, 2018).
Alex Stevens is an artist living in Cardiff. His work lurks at the crossroads of science and magic; as an act of re-enchantment he wants to reveal demons in the blood, and eyes in the shadows. He can be found on Twitter @AbjectObjects.