Where the ladder goes

On the day the world ended my father and I 
rode on the train side by side like any other day
on any other train. Minutes before he heard a stranger 
on the platform, deranged. 
It was me but something had changed her (danger) - 

What about Pompeii? I poke him awake. 
What sense does that make? 
From station to station the murmur recurs like an earthquake.
Why do beautiful things make my heart break?

Love doesn’t mean an absence of pain. My head shakes. 

Though my legs carry me late, my back breaks, 
in this memory version, as it shapes, 
I see my dream self makes it in time for the exchange
and the sun setting right reaches wide like the ocean
so this time I can take back the words before they’re spoken.

And then ask for nothing. Another inconsequential daughter
waits beneath the timetable mumbling,

The opposite of broken is not unbroken.