Survival

When you get called “Sir”
for the dozenth time
in two weeks/
you cry/ briefly/
while dragging your suitcase 
through the underbelly of Los Angeles’s 
Union Station/ and wonder if only 
you had worn a tank top today/
maybe you wouldn’t be crying.
But she looked you in the face/
this time/ took in all 14 hours of travel
your body endured just to get here/
to buy this bus ticket. You/
with two bobby pins in your hair/
you with your faded blue hoodie on/
you with your impossibly tight skinny jeans/
she was a foot away from your face
when she asked, “One way, Sir?”
 

			

			
							

Three Poems – Carrie Rudzinski

Hope, New Zealand

The week before you came back
I woke in the early fog mornings
to untangle Kiwi tree branches
without any gloves on. 

Lucas would push the stroller
filled with tools and the portable radio –
nicknamed “The Baby” by the 
childless farmers we worked for –
through the wet grass and Hiro 
would sing and we would wait 
with raw fingers for the sun
to swallow our frost breath. 
After lunch, we would flee, 
ride our too-small bikes down 
the back roads out of Hope,
towards the sky or something 
bigger. We’d steal
Wifi from McDonalds and eat
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
on the bank of Tasman Bay
and Lucas would ask in his 
broken English if my smiles
were for him. We never made it 
to Rabbit Island – or maybe we did. 
The winter sun always at half-mast
in the Southern Hemisphere.