Sail Away

I’ve had my ear to the rail forty-six days and counting.
Three yards up the line, my sister huddles,
waiting, same as me.

Hearing something
I jerk my head up,
study the horizon.
But, no, it is nothing,
perhaps the whine of an airplane overhead;
its contrail divides the sky in half.
My sister clears her throat.


In the alfalfa field small birds
like warbler and nuthatch, flit from stalk to stalk.
I lay my ear down once more.
The steel rail warm and soothing against my skin.
Its smoothness is like a sharp, sharp blade,
ready to slice a tomato.


Now I hear rumbling.
Under the palm of my hand, vibration.
With my head on the trestle,
I see a plume of white, smoky steam
unfurling in the sky.
A finger pointing,
but not at me.

The vibrato becomes a shuddering.
The grumble, a deafening roar.
I crouch,
horrified and immobile.

With a scream, the locomotive is upon me,
shaking me senseless like dice in a cup.

Yet it misses me,
as if I were invisible.

I sit up after the last car passes,
watching my sister as she sails away,
her brown hair laughing with the wind.

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I'd published another version of this poem much earlier in this blog's life. It's here now, closer to its final form.