In this country,

this train ride is like Sunday.
We go nowhere we speak. Walk
under apples, imagine these fields
somewhere we know.

I have learned thank you.
Please. Stamps. Milk. Postcards.
My fourth week here, still
conversation happens in a booth
at night.

We walk together. Wheat
and watercolor. I expect this.
You leave. For days I run in silence.
Sometimes cobblestone slopes exactly
right,

echoes your voice weeks after
you've one. No play happens here.
I pull you along this unfamiliar route.
Say, I have. We are. There is. Good day.
We will find our way home in time
for afternoon.

by Sarah Gallagher