Jack Hanson
The Pleasure of Riding

Though our train plunges through
the blue of a rather cool night,
love stays on platforms in Paris
and we are left simply to think.

The imaginations of travelers will insist
that this be for us the only reward
and that our blue is not so blue.

They do not see—train tracks are lined forever
with patches of grass between gravel,

And one may always lie and rest, then wake.

_ _

Jack Hanson (b. 1990, Cape Cod) holds degrees from Suffolk University and the University of Chicago. In addition to poetry, he writes fiction and essays, and regularly contributes book reviews to Open Letters Monthly, among other venues. He lives in Chicago, and is currently at work on a novel.

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