A Choice

I am submitting smell of paper for an english award, but i can submit one other poem.
Which should it be & why.

Choice #1
Train set

We lived in a Plasticville
1950’s train-spotting suburbia,
carefully planned out transit lines
from church to train store
to
basement to attic—the town
mapped out in Dad’s mind while
working on the paper-maché Murray Hill,
no commute time or heart attacks here-
just,
the reassuring placement-
a Pullman-town all the same,
tiny green trim lawns, Francis
Lewis Boulevard stretching
through
kids playing ball, collecting
coins and stamps, Mother
calls for dinner at six
o’clock on the dot pot roast
a
dream watching difference
clack by—CNJ, PRR,
RDG, NYC—a road named birthplace
and design, each boxcar
a
colour coded conformity to
place and time,
streaking by,
the blinking gated crossing line,
a
protective measure
to keep children’s hands back—
held and guided—always
mathematical, sincere.

Choice #2
Columbus Day—phone call.

First, and always, the five
unanswered rings—Mom, Doc
Cherylin, Amy, Greg—all busy

in worlds of planned painting,
perfect To Do lists done, preschool leaf
collection and a single teenager

still and sitting—
avoidance techniques fully practiced—as
she hooks into the net downstairs

connecting her everywhere but there.
And the echo
ring of a missing son

picked up by recorded greetings—
a frozen moment of informed politeness—
This is the Schroeder and

Tiefel residence please leave
a message with your name and number
and we will get back to you—

I studder in the twenty
seconds given to me twenty seconds to
tell them my wants and needs

twenty seconds to properly greet
an empty house listening to mumbled
words cut off—

I call back. They
are there aware of the part—
the sixth unanswered ring—missing nothing about

the homefront normalcy preplanned
weekend spending sprees and family
meetings miles away.

They lay it on me thick.
Why don’t you visit? Why
don’t you come home

celebrate the day of discovery—
Columbus’s great journey—with
pumpkin picking and uneasy

dinnertime banter, where I only
eat side dishes, watching sister Cherylin
battle for identity and freedom

I have and take for granted.
I will stay.
I will toast Columbus and

his three ships of discovery.