this is what I thought of

when I thought about my sunny Vienna days:

sitting on a wooden bench in a train station

just sitting,

no tickets in my grubby hand.

I am again

entranced

by the cadence of everything:

the rickety tracks

the whistle

the clickclickclick of the suitcase’s wheels.

I am in love with the inky black and white page set before me;

I can see those faded watercolors,

all pastels and soft reds and blues and grays,

like the ones in my grandmother’s children books,

slightly worn.

and I watch the girl

-that girl-

who is waiting by the train

and I like the fact that she has a suitcase but no map,

whose crisp lines wouldn’t agree with watercolors.

I like the way she is standing

her chin straight ahead

twirling the fifth button on her jacket,

and I like the way she has sun in her eyes and toes in her boots.

I think she is the girl I would be

if I had tickets somewhere.

but then again,

I don’t,

so I go and sit in my marigold kitchen,

feeling the cool granite underneath my thighs,

and pour a cup of water from a pitcher I keep in the icebox

and write more poems

and think less about tickets,

because I suppose I punched mine on the way to Vienna anyway.