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When Janell asked,

"What is literature?"

I felt I had to explain.

"What might really happen "

or "something

you make up." Then I saw—

that could be spite

or lies. I might have said,

"what begins and ends,

what runs its course

once and after all."

For instance, it could be

when that couple I knew

moved into

the Carpenter Lane station,

neat clapboard

and gingerbread lace,

the railroad rented out

by the month.

In back, imagine

buds on the bushes,

but they'd have time to be roses,

small torches

caught before they flared.

And somewhere near,

a pond paying close attention,

doubling the world,

as water does or a story

does in the telling.

I might have said

how Janell 1,

you yourself, before,

are different from Janell 2,

you now. Though

I'd come to realize

it was always Janell

in the same plaid dress,

but fresh and clean

each week. Think how

to that couple

going out mornings

would have seemed a journey

and returning

in the fine blue dust

of twilight, a homecoming.

Either way, trains

coming and going,

so many goodbyes to wave

or hellos. And so

time passed.

What else could it do?

Or sometimes a light rain

might have fallen,

washing the day away.

Anyhow, today

not a curtain moves,

no one is there to see

the passengers pass by.

What happened

is literature. Now at night

the trains stand still

in the yard,

even the heavens are still,

only the stars

moving through them