Awakening on the 5:05 – a poem by Scott Waters

Awakening on the 5:05

and then you got shingles and
we realized that stress is a snake
coiled in the stomach roaming the
halls of the body at will and at large

and to tame it we had to sit beside
a lavender stream in the woods in
silence tucking stars into our pockets

and then a homeless man sat down
on the fringes of this poem in his
public cloud of rags and stench
deserving the same stream
in the same woods
the same stars falling through

the holes

in his shoes

Scott Waters is a poet and songwriter living in Oakland, California, with his wife and son.  He graduated with an M.A. from the San Francisco State creative writing program, and has published previously in The Santa Clara Review, The Pangolin Review, Oblivion, and NatureWriting.