Watching the Jersey Central

Watching the Jersey Central Locomotive Shunt Cars, February 14, 1977

She stumbles over rail
in ice slung air,
a tilted shadow of Lady
Liberty chipped in her cab
and the spiked sun glazed
on her hood.
With a feckless load
of rock hoppers, she knuckles
the mud and burbles
her aged diesel down
the platform track.
Rancid, rusted, near rot,
she takes the Bound
Brook Bridge and quivers
the morning
as ten a.m. calls
from the Presbyterian
church bell.

The Transfer

The Transfer

I dreamt you had left
and were laughing at me
for still standing alone
in a place reserved for two,
but I woke
and kissed your face
and you rose with me
to celebrate
again, but you couldn't
or I couldn't,
and then we were on the road
with your plane and your new school
as your morning
and my house and my job
as mine, but you smelled
the same as you did
in Georgetown, still had trouble
adjusting my car seat,
I held your secrets for you,
a promise, maybe
always,
and I wish I had known
that that was the last time
I would kiss you,
hold you while you held me.
I came to visit. You pecked
me on the cheek hello,
like my mother's aunt,
then called to someone offstage,
and I faced the audience alone.