Public Transportation

I love to write sestinas. They're an old kind of poem that repeats six words in varying orders over the course of seven stanzas. This is the first one I ever wrote.

Public Transportation

It was a simple transaction: You find me at the deserted train

station. We glance and see each other’s yellow hat covered heads.

You subtly speed walk toward me, but take care to look around

First. We raise our arms in greeting but a static shock stuns us a moment,

Though it doesn’t seem important enough to address. I grasp your right

Hand so tightly it hurts, like the static.This time, we both notice.

I begin. “If one wishes to  master stage magic, first take notice

Of all the ways the world is trying to off you. Thomas the Train

Engine lurking in dark alleys, hippies stripping away our right

To lob bricks and stones at royalty and other foreign heads

Of states that sure as hell aren’t mine, at least at the moment.”

My code works. You understand and nervously look around

Only to realize too late that there is nobody else around

Except me. But I’m your friend, surely you would notice

If I planned to betray you. You spend just half a moment

Too long considering this, and do not see the blue train

Speeding out of the alley, aiming for our soft human heads.

I quickly grab your shoulder and shove you off to my right

Just as terrible Thomas rushes past. I make the right

Move, tossing my trick coin up in the air and into (or around)

His smokestack which, in a fortunate turn of events, lands heads

Down. This result, as only the keenest intellectuals ever bother to notice,

Induces dangerous luck in cars, boats, and one unfortunate train.

Thomas creaks to a stop and cries, “Please, I just need a moment!”

I almost feel sympathy and give him his final moment,

But I quickly brush it off. Mercy has no place between right

And wrong. I take out a small hidden pistol and train

Its sights on the disabled machine. Suddenly, a round

Object falls from the sky and attracts my undivided notice.

It lands not far from you, and a thing with two heads

Crawls out, most likely in search of fact-filled heads

Like ours to gorge upon. Unlikely, I know, but at the moment

It seems a certain. In our shock, we almost fail to notice

The hideous extraterrestrial monstrosity now hovering right

Towards us. Luckily, I think faster than you and look around

For a possible escape. We both scramble behind the dying train.

But we feel the thing notice us and are almost compelled to come out of hiding.

Its voice is soft and melodic, “I have come here to train you in the ways of the moment.”

I fire two shots right into its alien heads, then I turn around and shoot you.

Author's Note

Please, be honest.