George E. Clark
Flash of Boots
A flash of boots
Jumping like a cornered bobcat
The train is boarding on the other side
Pleading, racing
Crunch of boot on snow
Wide strides
Around the back engine
Snow flying with the launch of each shoe
The boarding line grows thin
Up the ramp
Heart careening like a loosed balloon
Lungs filling like a glass of lemon juice
What Neanderthal rival
What elusive rodent steak
Taught us to care so much about
Missing the 8:58 train?
Bio
George E. Clark is a college librarian during the week and a hospital security guard on Saturdays. He is a former columnist for Environment magazine. His poetry has been published in The Resource, Harvard University's human resources newsletter; in Crucible, the literary magazine of Earlham College; and in Lines in the Landscape, a juried chapbook published by Fruitlands Museum and the Concord (MA.) Poetry Center. George studied geology at Earlham College, geography at The University of Chicago and Clark University, where he got his Ph.D., and library science at Simmons College.