AUTOBIOGRAPHY
by Barbara Siegel Carlson
I step onto the train with a suitcase of books
written in a language I can’t speak.
The train won’t stop
in my childhood town.
I remember my cat walking by
a lit candle. The train blazes through
colored trees, a charred pile
where the hotel shaped like a ship
burned down. There’s still a sign
for Native American trinkets.
Once my parents bought me a head-dress
of the brightest feathers. A gust
blew my head-dress into the sea.
Shivering in my blue seat
in the middle of the flames, I pass
my father walking backwards and
I call to him in a lit whisper.
Copyright © 2011 by Barbara Siegel Carlson.
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