Jacklyn Henry


one more year

on a warm fall day i found myself
walking next to railroad tracks
near the Sunkist Oranges Packing plant,
waiting on an afternoon train.

i would put pennies on the long iron rail,
and wait.

that day a circus train rattled by,
the big black engine belching steam
into the lazy afternoon sky.

i counted each car as they passed.

a man standing on the transom
of the red caboose offered me a wave
and i waved back.

i snatched up my crushed pennies
and watched the train disappear,
smaller and smaller until nothing
and i walked up into the packing plant
to look around.

a Mexican woman with thick brown eyes
and an easy smile offered me
a couple of oranges 
before shooing me away.

i thought,
man, nothing gets better than this.

and i walked home,
found my dad asleep on the couch.
i cleared the empty beer cans,
ate two oranges for dinner,
and dreamt of joining the circus,
but knowing at nine
i might be too young
to run away to the circus.

and i thought,
man, one more year. just one more.



another day

it’s been a long day
a nothing day
but one of those days

a slow day
without passion
or violence
or rhyme

someone
somewhere
died

someone always dies
somewhere

               it may have been me
               maybe not

a priest stands at the pulpit
parishioners sit and stare
some cry
some try not to laugh
some linger and wait patiently for the day to end

t r a n s i t i o n

to the next day
another day
a day not unlike this day
unless a shadow forms across the door
and memories become present
and the river sits still as you travel slowly across



loss again

every day i lose
online friends and
real world friends
and random people
who may have become 
friends.

i am sure it relates
to my becoming 
Jacklyn
and i cannot help
who i am or
who i want to be
or
how i want to express.

it’s okay if you walk away.

as my path narrows,
i can see clearly through
eyes i never knew
i had —



train to Jalisco

passengers speak strange languages
as we bounce down old rail lines
nestled close against mountainsides 

old women with large brown eyes
stare blankly at me, through me,
beyond comprehension of who i might be

a young mother holds her baby
to an exposed breast, smiles meekly,
her eyes do not apologize for Western 
sensibilities

men in dirty clothes talk loudly,
old stories i understand through
gestures and laughter,
and the little Spanish i still understand

children run up and down the aisle
as we bound through forests, descend into deserts, 
creep slow through villages and towns with old names

they pay for their travel with pesos 
not Amerikan dollars and offer me reconciliation
as we travel together, 

we are one, joined in the moment,
through this passage in time

Jacklyn Henry (she/they) is a transfeminine genderqueer writer based on the outskirts of Los Angeles. She has been published at Cream Scene Carnival, Wicked Gay Ways, Pink Disco, Clockwise Cat and elsewhere.

 
 

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