lunch break warning

Life Story XI

Trains in looping circles, hands held.

bedtime

Class Notes: Rule #35

no, it was just an ordinary day
no idea of suburban choke
no way out of a street named after a
president whose name sounds
like a candy.

no, it was building in routine
the time it takes to travel to from a lab &
back & to sweep the floor of a church
for an extra hundred dollars a week.

no, it was growing up, or growing out
remodeling a railway that died in the
sixties, keeping track of hockey players stats
cards that consoled when lined up

and never running away from shadows

the track shifted &
connected to a refinery, a plant
to process the sweet particles
for children's confections

his model railway had
stopped running--plastic people
frozen, dust collecting on their
caps--the times tables
redrawn

Subway 8:46 a.m. September 11.

In a tunnel under the Hudson
riding to work, the first impact was
a subtle shake.

A shift of seismic energy
on the Richter scale,
a 2.3 magnitude shudder.

The subway did not stop,
but continue towards the
burning towers.

It rolled, without rushing,
under anchored beams, through the
station, and slid safely

back to New Jersey.



Inspired by the book , American Ground Unbuilding the World Trade Center
by William Langewiesche

lets take these steamy aimless trains and wind until we find a summer far away.