Catching a Train in Chicago, by Hayley Mitchell Haugen

Haugen Catching a Train in Chicago, photo by Wendy Moss (USA) contemporary

Catching a Train in Chicago
(for Matthew Wolfe)

“Something about my PD hates crossing thresholds.”
 Michael J. Fox

Time, in Magritte’s painting, remains transfixed, 
stalled at 12:43 on the mantle clock, frozen, 
like a man between doorways whose feet itch
for locomotion but no longer obey him.

Stalled like time on the mantle clock, perplexed, 
I think of your need to pay constant attention, 
like when speech no longer obeys, has you vexed;
not being able to gauge speed, or execute intentions.

It must be a life of constant agitation, 
a quickening of pace, a shortening of stride; 
not gauging your day, your destination,
must feel like an unpredictable ride.

With a quickening pace, a shortening stride, 
your precise track is surreal misdirection,
the unpredictable ride fueling your desire
to redirect errant locomotion.

Each day’s path ends in surreal misdirection
for a man stuck between doorways––stitched.
For you, I long to ignite locomotion, 
but like time for Magritte, it remains transfixed.

​Hayley Mitchell Haugen

The painting in the photo is Time Transfixed by René Magritte (Belgian) 1938.
​
Hayley Mitchell Haugen is a Professor of English at Ohio University Southern. Light & Shadow, Shadow & Light from Main Street Rag (2018) is her first full-length poetry collection, and her chapbook, What the Grimm Girl Looks Forward To is from Finishing Line Press (2016). Her latest chapbook, The Blue Wife Poems, is from Kelsay Books (2022). She edits Sheila-Na-Gig online and Sheila-Na-Gig Editions.