In a car the dream is to arrive
& extricate the body, sweating or
shivering, there.

The train though heaves through
years. It should be silver
or black: its ticket from one
bright place to another, its cars
not so crowded you cannot
walk. 

	Let’s tell
the truth: the train is not
clean—the rubber floors of its aisles
crunch, littered with shells of almonds dropped
by yesterday’s drunken soldiers.

The train is a dream. My son wants
white smoke sucked skyward, backward,
pure smoke white as his eyes
to surround us on this platform 
in billows sporadic then gone. I tell him
that days of such stuff are past,
the slow luxury’s been surrendered
forever—now there's speed, urgency.
That’s too bad, he says, and in the dream
we speak of the train as a dream.

Mine is this: I read when I can,
then get restless. The afternoon	
leans across the fields, shadowing
the oaks. I walk from car to car,
stop to stand & smoke	
a cigarette in the world
between cars. There is heavy grease smell.
I watch the coupling as the train
comes to an easy curve. The springs
distend, the balls roll in their sockets.

Then the time has come—the dark
has been laid down. I find the empty
sleeping-car and close the door,
draw the red curtains, reach for
the light, undress. I breathe four
breaths into velvet and she is there: she
whom I have never seen. Her 
dark hands touch my neck.

We breathe together now,
and yes it is possible that
at a given moment the rhythm
of our breath matches that of train
& track.

But it doesn’t matter. There is light
like molten iron in the east,
and when I look down
I find nothing: my body has blown
away, flecked skin & bone
fine as thistle seeds, out the open
window, toward my death three hundred
miles ago, when we passed a town
whose lights I thought were beautiful.