2:15 AM

In the night of cold boughs

quietly snapping,

the freight rolls through,

trumbling.

Wheels on seams

trouble the lonely,

rusty veined rows:

Chelank, chelank.

Threaded over dead roads,

stilled by old snow,

the empty cars still chatter:

Begin again, Begin again, Begin again.

Wordlessly the horn wails,

high and long

as it crosses under the wan curve

of the new moon,

spooning a vast

collapsing

into my unseeing sigh.