Train of Thought, Three a.m.

by Marion Starling Boyer

after

Train of Thought

by Mona Kolesar

I should have bought that special foam pillow      I’ve got to get to sleep
pillow is a weird word, maybe I could quick google that
whoa, the light’s bright
huh, between 5 and 23 million years ago tree-dwelling great apes began building
sleeping platforms, including wooden pillows, to improve their sleep
right, wooden pillows to improve sleep

something here about Mesopotamia, which Mrs. Van Alstein told us
was the “cradle of civilization”        the only thing I remember about Mesopotamia
is that cradle I always pictured as an actual wooden baby cradle, with the rockers going
sideways, or do they go            no, they go sideways

and I wonder whatever happened to Mrs. Van Alstein because seems like people just
come and go in my life
like that oddball kid, Frankie, from seventh grade who always chewed his pencil,
even the eraser, and he’d scratch his head with crumpled metal part after the eraser was
chewed off maybe he had head lice, but he was the kind of guy who would go off
somewhere like Peru or Nepal, or build a log house in Alaska

and I’m never going to do something like that, go to Nepal,
though I could go to Peru or Alaska, I could,
or maybe Wisconsin or somewhere                 except what’s so great about Wisconsin
and geez it’s 3:10 and I’ve got to get up at 6:30 unless I skip breakfast

I’ve got to relax                     lie still                         and stop thinking

Mrs. Van Alstein’s red hair that wasn’t even a real hair color but like maroon,
marooned on a desert island, just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful
trip –oh no, this is going to get stuck in my brain – the millionaire and his wife
I should buy a lottery ticket

       stop – just stop and think of a happy place like the lake, I’m floating on
the water, lapping sounds, feels good, feels warm, feels like there might be seaweedy
stuff down there, and fish, fish lipping my legs

so, I’m in cradle, rocking no, not a cradle I’m rocking in a hammock, rocking,
easy-breezy, my eyes are heavy, I’m drifting off, breathing in, breathing

and hammock’s a weird word,       but I’m not going to google it,
I’m just going to swing in the hammock                    rocking

hammock comes from the Mayans who wove the bark of hamack trees –
hammocks, new research has shown, help people sleep more quickly and deeply.
I bet a wooden pillow wouldn’t be any worse that this stupid pillow.

Mona Kolesar, Artist: Is there a special place in our mind where we keep ideas?

Why do we think of things?

How many times does an idea come back?

How long does it linger?

The voice of the artwork is the one happening inside my head. Without being consciously aware, I find that interpreting the creative thought process:  the sparks, the gathering, the churning, the connections, with lines, both combined and intertwined, give me fodder to develop my sculpture.  Lines are my current mode of expression in creating an external statement about an internal journey.

Marion Starling Boyer, Poet: Marion Starling Boyer is author of four poetry collections: The Sea Was Never Far (Main Street Rag, 2019), The Clock of the Long Now (Mayapple Press, 2009); Composing the Rain, winner of Grayson Books 2014 Poetry Chapbook Competition; and Green (Finishing Line Press, 2003). ​After living and teaching in Kalamazoo, Michigan for many years, she and her husband now live in Twinsburg and she enjoys teaching writing workshops for Lit Cleveland and Lit Youngstown. Boyer is currently working on a poetry manuscript about Antarctic exploration.

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