trains

loneliness has a way
of hanging around all day

Valdy

they're hard to hear in winter,
with the windows all closed,
and the doors clapped shut,
and the dagger-tooth wind
holding me under house arrest,

they're hard to hear in winter,
those summer night trains.

but I imagine them waiting,
restless,
in a line,
on the tracks over there,
humming and thrumming,
their heavy bass chorus,
like a mantra,
my ommm,
drifting with the dark air
across the city,
across my world.

and alone, abed, awake
I lie,
wondering about the other
who listens to the trains.