Random Acts of Poetry

Random Acts of Poetry

Trains

I remember that heartbeat
thud of them

while I turned in my bed.
The endless freight

of Lackawana, the mineral tick
of steel on tracks.

You could not enter
the city of my birth

without smelling the tannery,
respecting

the crossings that brought us all
to a stop.

The noise of the courses
off in the world

was part of that house,
with its model train

in the basement,
with a miniature mind

running in circles
vast in their distance.
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