The Blues
The metal sheds sickly teal
paint, peeling off the lattice
of the corroded cabinet
like a dead skin husk
to expose the crumbling grime
of the desk beneath.
Flecks like rusty snow obscure
the faint blue lines that span
the pages of my notebook,
railroad tracks traveling direct,
left to right, perfectly parallel
through dark ink clouds. They cross
the spiral bridge and continue
on the next page, undeterred.
Loneliness waits in train stations
under abandoned newspapers
crumpled on empty benches.
It sits among broken glass,
glinting in gravel, wedged between
weeds and crossties. It is
always coming, and going. Never here
nor there.
I took a train once
from a sleepy Allegheny valley
in the still morning.
The mountains walked slowly
backwards, sinking into pine boughs
and cold curling fog.
When the clanking wheels grew tired
in a screeching metal decrescendo,
I woke to damp yellow lights
and the tarnished blue notes
of a lone harmonica echoing
through the station,
the ghost of a thousand dead men
with dusty caps and dented pickaxes
resting along the railroad ties
in the cold half-light.