POETRY
Anachronism Under King's Cross
by Jacqueline West
She raises her hands like a silent film heroine
silver celluloid skin spilling electric pores,
puts her hands to her head; claws her hair.
There should be a fragile handkerchief
fluttering in the damp clutch of her fist,
there should be buttoned heels on her feet
as she races beside the accelerating steel
fixed on two eyes and one pale palm
pressed to the other side of the glass.
The train bullets into the narrowed tube,
sloughing her path like a barnacle.
She checks the pocket of her jeans
again, touching the crushed edge of her pass;
moves to the bench on the black platform
and feels her heartbeat loosening, desperation
smoothing its text from her face. There should be
a paper fan, a vial of stoppered smelling salts.
The short illumination fades. Settling back
against metal bars, she watches London
rush down the stairs, shaking umbrellas,
adjusting clasps while she sinks into its stone medium,
translucence clouding, returning to flesh,
waiting for him to come back and find her.
Jacqueline West currently lives, writes, and teaches in Madison, Wisconsin. Her work has recently appeared in journals including The Pedestal Magazine, Mytholog, Poetry Motel, and Hidden Oak.