Trains

Trains

Robert Okaji

 

1

In the marrowbone of night,

your song parts the fog.

I never knew the secrets entrusted there.

I never knew that cinders and steel

could lie so passionately

 

and still believe that the watchman’s hours

would evaporate and leave us scratching for more.

 

I have stolen time.

 

The windows remain closed and shuttered.

Even the wind turns away.

 

The track narrows.

 

You call.

 

Again.

2

 

Sometimes song seems the only respite,

the rhythm of clashing cars

 

and moments stretched beyond the next bend

to that point where light winks out.

 

We both know this lonely tunnel.

 

Payment is due.

 

I have always exited alone. 

 

3

Another evening, and red smoke completes the horizon.

 

Your ribs stretch for distance,

and while I cannot see their end,

I know by sound

their lot.

 

Sing for me.

It is not

too close.

 

---

“Trains” was originally published in Lightning’d Press (Issue 8), and is included in Robert Okaji’s chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform, to be released in April 2015 as Dink Press’s initial offering in its National Poetry Month Series.

Image by Zach Bonnell