The Tracks

by Michael Palma

A poet sits in a quiet town,
In a wooden boardinghouse
Half a block from the railroad station,
Watching the sunset filter down,
Lacing a poem in his mind,
Rubbing the lines and wondering
Why what holds the houses together
Eludes him like a snapping string,
Wrapping his mind around the question,
Leaning his forehead on the blind.

A soldier sits in the railroad station
Thinking about a piece he had,
But that was in another country
And everybody there is dead.
The light hangs steady in his brain
And all the harpoons in his side
Don’t burn him now that he is learning
To feed the leather in his skin,
Skin that sits waiting for the train
Existing just to carry him.

A poet sits in his easy chair
As midnight creeps across the street,
Listening for a lonesome whistle
Moaning on the laden air.
Just beyond the town the dreams
Growing and hiding in the woods
Tempt him toward another harvest.
Clouds fall open, and the drizzle
Comes to him on little feet
Dripping along the window’s seams.

A girl sits in the clacking train
Aimed at the city, on her own,
Drawing faces in her notebook,
Hiding behind the local rain,
Looking at the little station
Where a soldier swings his bags aboard,
Clutching dreams and expectations
Like a blanket to her heart,
Staring around her in impatience,
Waiting for the world to start.

A poet sits on his lumpy bed,
Timing his cigarettes toward the dawn
As the quiet little hours contract
Like drying leather around his head.
The clouds are swallowed in the night,
The raindrops on the glass are blinking.
He reaches over to the table,
Tears the easy poem down,
And sits all night in lamplight, thinking
Of the lines around him, good and tight.