There’s always a train, he used to say. Always a train, a whistle in darkness, reminder of distances we’ll never know. Reminder of there not here, you not me and curved strung-out wires in between. Reminder of infrastructure, metal and bones that suddenly give up their marrow. Reminder of Christmas wide-eyed vulnerability, shiny wrappers that can’t keep their promises. Each steampunk locomotive a vector for transgression dispossession marched out across maps. Iron and deadwood and black-hammered spikes, screech of smoke on non-helical rails. Bright pennies sacrificed on the backyard tracks, small copper faces distorted. Memory of a perfect day, when shadows shook the armor from my shoulders. Cradle rocking. Or insistent forward, like the Folsom Prison Blues. Lions and peacocks roared through mimosas that tossed feathered forms on our moldy white walls. Memory of a mattress then solidity of my square heel on a platform under rustle of silk skirts. Parallel scars travel dark rooms punctuated by stations and steam under streetlights.
Wren Donovan Published in Poetry South, Issue 15, 2023