The western sky over the tracks is persuasion pink. Her date takes it all in.

No one else around on a Monday in the drizzle. She steals glances at Don’s strong jaw with just a hint of stubble.

The Chicken Delight parking lot watching for trains: as make-out spots go, it’s certainly unusual. Colour her intrigued.

Don doesn’t speak much. Offers to let her read the latest issue of Defunct Theme Park Steam Train Monthly, back seat, middle pile, third from the top.

If only he were part barreleye fish so she could see inside his head.

When Don said he was into “training the mind,” she assumed he was a neuroscientist, you know: the kind of guy who’d love nothing better than waking up to Sudoku and sun salutations with her.

Such smouldering as he stares down the line, entranced with what’s to come. She’s definitely reading his aura as a baklava blue.

She wonders when he’ll get the nerve. His pulse throbs above his armadillo-beige collar. She takes his hand. He clears his throat.

Then they hear it. A rumble down the line. He leans in for a kiss, the ground shakes, the whistle sounds inside her ventral tegmentum—turning the insides of her eyelids her favourite shade of indecent tangerine.

Angeline Schellenberg

is the author of three full-length poetry collections: the Manitoba Book Award-winning Tell Them It Was Mozart (Brick Books, 2016), the KOBZAR-nominated Fields of Light and Stone (UAP, 2020), and Mondegreen Riffs (At Bay Press, 2024). Her microfiction has appeared recently in New Flash Fiction Review, Friday Flash Fiction, The Ekphrastic Review, 50-Word Stories, The Dribble Drabble Review, and Molecule. A spiritual director, writing mentor, and assistant photographer, Angeline hosts Speaking Crow: Winnipeg’s longest-running poetry open mic. She enjoys talking to dogs and eating other people’s baking.

Author’s website: https://angelineschellenberg.wordpress.com/