Justin Runge

Travelogue

The boy
waving
at the train
did not 
realize he was 
waving at me. 
Koi-colored
traffic cones 
in the river.
How many
know fowl
go underwater
for a second.
Or know,
but forget.
Ornate tattoo
on the small 
of the pregnant
woman’s back
says Beautiful.
I am trying 
to keep this 
poem on Earth.
The train stops
on a part of it 
long enough 
that I see rust
and we begin to.
Welcome to 
Vancouver.

I'm not much of a collector, so I like my keepsakes to be functional: a pair of socks stitched with hamburgers and french fries bought in Santa Cruz; a canister of fir needle tea from Big Sur that's long since been brewed; a magnet of an octopus from the Monterey Aquarium on my fridge as a reminder not to eat octopi — too smart, my wife says.

Justin Runge lives in Lawrence, Kansas, where he serves as poetry editor of Parcel. He is the author of two chapbooks, Plainsight (New Michigan Press, 2012) and Hum Decode (Greying Ghost Press, 2014). Recipient of the Lawrence Arts Center's 2014 Langston Hughes Award, Runge has published in Best New Poets 2013, Linebreak, DIAGRAM, and elsewhere. He can be found at www.justinrunge.me.