It Got All Fucked Up (best title I can come up with)

By Katie Heffring

The old lady with the long coat.

She holds her babies close to her chest,

Wrapped in a weathered quilt.

She rocks them.

I see her across the platform.

I am standing in a sea of people.

A hundred heads in winter coats.

We are all waiting for the train.

I see her in her long coat.

The babies’ heads bounce and bounce.

Their weathered heads.

The seven weathered heads of her babies.

The train on my side breaks.

Out streams the new heads.

In stream the old heads,

Like sardines with no room left.

I jump back startled.

In front of me, the doors almost close on the head of a young mother’s baby.

She holds the pink winter star to her chest,

And she dives into the sardine can.

Slam!  Slam!

“Fuck me!” I say out loud.

The young mother’s backpack is jammed between the doors.

I step back as the people on the platform push her in.

“Le bébé! Le bébé!” a woman inside shouts.

The doors close.

The train goes.

“Fuck me!” I say out loud.

I see her still there in her long coat.

The train on her side breaks.

She carefully steps in with her weathered bundle of babies.

She slowly takes a seat on the train.

Through the window, I see her open the quilt a little.

I see the seven teddy bear heads poke out.

They are her babies.

I close my eyes and feel the wind of the train through my hair.