LAURA WETHERINGTON

On the Train from Eindhoven to Amsterdam Amstel with my Back to Eindhoven

This is the train to Enkhuisen.

There is a fold-up bike

in the vestibule.

It’s still dark, but not still-dark.

People in a glass box in ’s-Hertogenbosch

are shivering.

The box has swallow decals on the glass panes.

The glass goes nearly to the floor

not unlike a US bathroom stall. Ankle-high air vent

all the way around.

My lil chin hair is back.

In grad school Marcus tried to pull it

off, thinking there was loose hair, but

my chin skin pulled.

We laughed. He was embarrassed.

Maybe for me? I remember thinking:

here are our genders; here is our queerness.

Here it's the winter of broom trees, the winter

of lungs fanning up toward the sky.

My chin hair is back. It was gone the whole

pregnancy. Maybe this is good news for hormones.

Hey hormones! Good news!

Yesterday I heard Fred say, Come inside

but he said Climb the slide.

Laura Wetherington is a U.S. poet who lived in the Netherlands for six years. She has two books: Parallel Resting Places (Parlor Press) and A Map Predetermined and Chance (Fence Books). Laura works as the poetry editor for Baobab Press and teaches with the International Writers' Collective and the low-residency MFA Program at University of Nevada, Reno.