from breece d'j pancake's 'trilobites'
We climb out. a yellow light burns on the crossties, and the switches click. Far away i hear a train. She gives me my shirt and gets in her car. I stand there looking at the blood spots on the cloth. I feel old as hell. When i look up, her taillights are reddish blurs in the fog.
I walk around to the platform, slump on the bench. The evening cools my eyelids. I think of how that one time was the only airplane that ever passed over me.
I picture my father-a young hobo with the michigan sunset making him squint, the lake behind him. his face is hard from all the days and places he fought to live in, and of a sudden, i know his mistake was coming back here to set that locust-tree post on the knob.
"ever notice how only blue lightning bugs come out after the rain? Green ones almost never do."
I hear the train coming. she is highballing all right. no stiffs in that blind baggage.
"well, you know the Teays must of been a big river. just stand on company hill, and look across the bottoms. you'll see."
My skin is heavy with her noise. Her light cuts a wide slice in the fog. no stiff in his right mind could try this one on the fly. she's hell-bent for election.
"Jim said it flowed wet by northwet- all the way up to the old saint lawrence drain. had garfish - ten, maybe twenty foot long. Said they're still in there."
Good old jim'll probably croak on a lie like that. i watch her beat by. A worn-out tie belches mud with her weight. She's just too fast to jump. plain and simple.
I get up. i'll spend tonight at home. Ive got eyes to shut in michigan - maybe even germany or china, i dont know yet. i walk, but i'm not scared. i feel my fear moving away in rings through time for a million years.
I walk around to the platform, slump on the bench. The evening cools my eyelids. I think of how that one time was the only airplane that ever passed over me.
I picture my father-a young hobo with the michigan sunset making him squint, the lake behind him. his face is hard from all the days and places he fought to live in, and of a sudden, i know his mistake was coming back here to set that locust-tree post on the knob.
"ever notice how only blue lightning bugs come out after the rain? Green ones almost never do."
I hear the train coming. she is highballing all right. no stiffs in that blind baggage.
"well, you know the Teays must of been a big river. just stand on company hill, and look across the bottoms. you'll see."
My skin is heavy with her noise. Her light cuts a wide slice in the fog. no stiff in his right mind could try this one on the fly. she's hell-bent for election.
"Jim said it flowed wet by northwet- all the way up to the old saint lawrence drain. had garfish - ten, maybe twenty foot long. Said they're still in there."
Good old jim'll probably croak on a lie like that. i watch her beat by. A worn-out tie belches mud with her weight. She's just too fast to jump. plain and simple.
I get up. i'll spend tonight at home. Ive got eyes to shut in michigan - maybe even germany or china, i dont know yet. i walk, but i'm not scared. i feel my fear moving away in rings through time for a million years.