Forever Waiting at the Station
I don’t want to write a poem about it
but the images just keep coming at me.
I don’t want to imagine the impact,
I don’t want to imagine the screeching on the tracks,
the instant transformation of metal into scrap,
the first three carriages into total debris.
So, I concentrate on the graffiti on the still intact carriage
laying on its side, half on the tracks, half on the ground.
I fix my gaze on leaps and bounds depicted by flying fish,
imagine them swimming the other way to escape the death trap.
I imagine them swimming still as a crashed vessel
is lifted from behind them, now a sagging accordion.
I imagine them squirming and slipping in a motionless wrestle
to take ears from the last dropping notes, going deep, going long.
I see them leaping, I see them jumping, swimming up
against the tide of time for passengers to be picked up.