The Business
of Trains
*
Steam engine steel,
the proud
face of vintage America,
you are
best with your pompous roar,
your
unabated pursuits through forests
unseen
by all but the boys throwing pebbles
into your maw.
*
Beneath the chest lies the coal
on which we run. All that matters,
or so grandfathers told us.
Skin is tough
but only so much. It takes mettle,
the concealed to move. They said
this, wrench-in-wrist, having lived
it.
*
The boxcar winks, a half-open eye.
Light can fill one corner of a space
sure as caulk. In the dark, men breathe and
watch the light swirl, trapped, as they are,
in this
home that roams. Shadows flicker, disrupt
the light
as proof: when we die, the world still
moves.
*
Two men, a vacant platform.
A whistle
will forever resonate
as loss,
the howl of a wolf mourning
the
death of its cub. The younger man leans
in,
trying to catch what remains of a touch, her
last words. They dissolve like smoke.
*
Wood beams, rails and spikes stitch
this land
together, sprawl like veins, like
rivers. We travel
from above now, an aerial
perch to witness
the past—these rails like scars, a trail of
kisses
across the breast of the country. What else can bear
the labor, the luggage of
humanity? Only these.
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