It’s a wonder we weren’t snatched from the streets,
we two tween girls in summer halter tops
and madras shorts, strolling Lansing’s barren
sidewalks before dawn split open the day.
We’d waited till the house fell still, the spire
atop capitol’s dome, like a spotlight
burning, beckoning us to sneak away,
to tiptoe down each creaky step, newbie
aerial artists learning to balance.
Before us, sweet stillness. Sleeping city,
mysterious as the interior
of a circus tent, hours before the show.
Near dawn, two men, in a slow rolling car
pulled alongside. You girls lost? C’mere. Yeah.
We wanna show you something. Coaxing us
like show ponies, they flicked their tongues, tk-tk-
tk-tk. Between houses, we ran, hiding
behind bushes, waiting till engine sounds
faded, till we felt safe. We debated
shortcuts home, to walk or not walk the train
trestle, high above an abandoned road,
single tracks leaving no option but straight
on, walking a tightrope of aging ties.
Who decided to go first? Half way cross
we felt rails vibrating, shaking beneath
our sandals’ soles, one of us said we should
turn back, the other ignored the warning,
sped ahead. Were we possessed by peril
or, by the competition of reaching
the other side first before the rumble
and screech reached us? One broke into a run,
the other screamed a laughing plea, Wait up!
Wait! Wait up! As if dying together
were better than ever dying alone.
