NO EXIT
We are in a Louise Nevelson kind of structure, random pieces of wood cobbled together and sprayed black. We have our passports and airline tickets, but a woman blocks the doorway, says before we can leave we must give her an address for every person we know. Somehow, we can't remember even one. Though we search each lopsided shelf, we find nothing but reams of darkness.
TRAIN
The clatter of wheels lulls us as the train we're on takes a curve then follows a straight track. Then another curve. There's a semaphore and a bridge which lights up and a small station where we do not stop. "Where are we going?" I ask. The semaphore again, the bridge, the station, another curve, another. "Nowhere and everywhere," you say. "This is our own particular Eternity."
from DREAM FRAGMENTS Swan Scythe Press 2020
“No Exit” first appeared in Spoon River Poetry Review and "Train" in Diode
Susan Terris 2021
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