MIPOESIAS VOLUME 24, ISSUE 1 ~ JANUARY 2011 Melissa McEwen The Train Dream The train doesn't stop in Blumefield. It stops in Wyndsor and Heartford, but not in Blumefield.


From Heartford it goes straight into Wyndsor and Rutha May doesn't understand why it just can't stop in Blumefield.


When she is done with washing the dishes she sits by the window in the kitchen and listens out for the sound of the train as it makes its way into Wyndsor from Heartford. Rutha May often imagines that the train runs right behind her house. She has detailed dreams at night about the conductor and in the dream she arranges with him to stop his train in the back of her house, even though there are no tracks. She would be on the back porch, luggage and little Sarah at her feet, waiting to get on that train after the cooking, cleaning and washing were done. She wouldn't come back either. Even though she would miss all her children –Jamesetta and Jimmy and Junior and Jim; she'd even miss the big old dog Buster that could die any day now. She used to dream of going on the train alone and leaving little Sarah behind, too, with the


rest of them, but she always feels sad on the train, in her dream, without her. Little Sarah is the youngest and wouldn't be able to fend for herself. Jamesetta is young, but grown, and she knows how to fight. Besides little Sarah is the one she loves the best. She is the one James let her name only because she promised to make him sweet potato pie every Sunday for a month if he let her name her. Little Sarah looks more like her, too. The others look like James. They have his big head, his big mouth, his loud voice, and his heavy feet.


Whenever Rutha May is in the kitchen, sitting on the cold radiator and dreaming, and the kids


are off playing in the backyard, and it's a little after five, James pulls up in the driveway and slams the car door when he gets out. He isn't angry; that is just his way. The loud bang of the door shakes Rutha May out of her dream and she goes to the oven to fix his plate. Rutha May eats standing up. The stove is her table. It isn't because there is no room at the table to sit; it's because she hates watching James eat. She is glad that he eats with his wide back towards her; she doesn't have to see his face when he scarfs down his food and chugs his Coke. She can still hear him, though, and the way he smacks on his food makes her skin crawl. She wonders if other men eat like that. She is sure that they don't. She is certain that other men have more class than James.


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