The poem fragments in Hope Wabuke‘s Movement No. 1: Trains (Dancing Girl Press, 2015) function more as meditations than portions of a whole. They meditate on movement’s power over the body and mind. What are the vessels that carry our bodies through cities, from home to beyond? Who are the people inhabiting our thoughts, moving our mind from idea to emotion to dream?

the city is color electric, neon; the humming static pulsing

further away. and she understands the way a charge moves through

air in the meeting of two bodies, but she does not understand the

afterwards, the pressing of a thing into the shape of something else.

These poems appear gentle but do not be deceived by the calm voice. Trains shudder and jolt, tracks shift and bump. There is a recognition of longing present each time the beloved is invoked, and a reluctant understanding that when in motion, the familiar becomes foreign.

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Hope Wabuke, “Movement No. 1: Trains” (Dancing Girl Press, 2015)