From a Train

Lynn Emanuel, 1949

After nights black abandoned truck

morning is locked down tight,
and the skys brewing up
some trouble.
So far at the bottom of this
moment, she could fall off.
Coat hem. A pair
of sultry shoes. She is five.
Small for her age.
Meeting her father for the first
time. Union Station. Denver.
Behind the harsh horizon
beyond the tracks, a dark
wildness over the swing set,
brick yard, development.
Little nowhere, where
Did you come from?
The train roams through
the gone and vanquished,
some pale, soft voice talking.
Spooks. Phantoms.

He is the unclosed
cut of her.
Find the missing
dark scythe. Find
the jawbone of an ass.
Dead wood, cemetery, oil vat
shooed awayharried
by the trains advance.
First this, then that, then
a thrushs three notes happen
all at once at once at once
and a figure
in a red hat.