Alice White
In My Youth I Stood on a Railway Platform

and watched the incoming train, imagined roots
branching down from my feet deep into the earth,

anchoring me to it. I would not step out onto the tracks
at the last, irretractable instant: I could not move at all.

Now I feel my body begin to reach into the ground,
my skin bark, what’s left of my hair, brittle leaves.

Where no one can see, acorns fill my mouth.
I have watched thousands of trains rush past,

rattling my branches. Look at me. Look at the grooves
in my face, look at my old age. I have earned it. I have paid.

Alice White is a poet from Kansas City who now lives
in rural France. She has received support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Rona Jaffe Foundation and she is a Hawthornden Fellow. Her poetry has recently appeared in The Threepenny Review, The Poetry Review, and The Cortland Review.