Chair Car, by Robert L. Dean, Jr.

Chair Car, by Edward Hopper (USA). 1965.

Chair Car

Not important is where they are going
is where they are coming from
here is where they are now is
this train moving is
this a train is
 
not as important as the light
how it
 
infuses everything
with the clarity of cataracts
illuminates nothing outside the windows
 
is the sky the vaulted interior of this car of seats half empty is
the interior the sky half full of light on a gray day refracted
into the interiors into wherever whoever they are now
these four passengers
 
retracting
destinations departures any sense of journey
 
or could this be it
 
manicured rows of hedged chairs
blunt tongued fescue door mats stuck out
licking
light like meat cleavers down the center aisle
licking
light like square-booted one-legged giant
tracks some limb-lopped ticket puncher
coming or going left
some monk of the crippled always here to always there always
neither here nor there passing shroud wrapped in light
through this cloister of passing
unnoticed unimportance
punching no tickets punch left in
the next or before car anyway
if there is one anyway
they don’t have tickets anyway don’t need
a pass for this any way you can tell from
their faces what you can see of them
anyway whatever
these scattershot passengers are or are not
passing to or from
 
and this is important
 
the door
the door at the far end
what the door at the far end of this car
doesn’t have
a handle
 
is what we can’t quite get
on this picture
out of this scenario
is what we can’t quite get
 
how the light bathes
so completely the blonde woman so
shall we say it
radiantly yet
unenlighteningly her
 
right ankle hosiery the same opaque sheen as the scenery
behind her not passing by her face down-drawn
drawing us to it the light like a prayer
in her hands unopened a book
given or received in passing an offering to
or from the light-footed usher who has just
passed has yet to pass is always passing
just out of frame behind the door maybe hiding invisible impossible
to open but ajar slightly
 
and this is important
 
not open is her face
like light through a window seen
from a street but not the lamp
purse slipping forgotten pocket of days
this day that day always the same dark verdurous day
slipping from between her slightly blushed knee and the proximate arm of the chair
is this what the
 
black-haired bound-haired woman one seat up and across
seat odd-angled watches
the light
not illuminating past her tight-lipped mouth
her sharp nose
angling her closed book gaze at the
closed book or
verdant time slipping away
or is she
that one darkened key-hole eye she allows us to see anyway
the illuminato
the hidden clue
the sharp point of a midnight pump emerging
like a jab at the causeway of
day after day after day
pointing zig zag
to the next woman up
a bit of face flash of neck seep of brown hair
blue-hatted or green-hatted maybe
a shadow of doubt maybe over her ultramarine
shoulder maybe just barely light-touched a bit of
hand tiny bit we can’t tell maybe
knitting maybe folded with some
unseen other
 
and this is important oh surely this is important
 
where she’s looking
the blue woman
 
across the aisle again
zig zag
 
stare at a head
just the back of a head
above an antimacassar gray day blue
like the light like the wall the cloister
door at the center of it
the end of it all the focus of this
slightly off-center perspective this
study in expansive claustrophobia
at which he stares like one does
on a blue gray day in the front hedge chair
the only man in this car of hedged bet chairs
somewhat abstractedly pondering
 
zig zag zig zag zig
 
the spot where there has never been
never will be
anything to grab onto
wondering
perhaps like us
 
if this is important if
this is still life
 
Robert L. Dean, Jr.

This poem was first  published in River City Poetry.

Robert L. Dean, Jr.’s work has appeared in Flint Hills Review, I-70 Review, Illya’s Honey, Red River Review, River City Poetry, Heartland!, and the Wichita Broadsides Project. In April 2017 he organized a program of poetry and improvised music at Fisch Haus in Wichita. His haibun placed first at Poetry Rendezvous 2017. He was a finalist in the 2014 Dallas Poets Community chapbook contest. His haiku placed second in the 2016 Kansas Authors Club competition. He has been a professional musician, and worked at The Dallas Morning News. He lives in Augusta, Kansas.