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.
