train dream by keith pearson

'things don't change, but by and by our wishes change' - marcel proust

this roiling maelstrom

    3am and enthroned again

    this lowest cacophony.

when we were kids we threw glass bottles

    at passing trains

and the sound it made

    like this roar inside my head.

remember - 

    put your ear to the cold rail

    

    and hear that deadbone rattle.

it is the haunted language

    of steam engines abandoned

    in wilderness left to die.

and snowflakes like clean nickels falling - 

it is not winter. not spring.

watching my old man hands and waiting

    on my own black wildness

    for something to happen.

keith pearson was born and raised in new hampshire and works at a local high school in the math department.