Monday, May 28, 2007
McKees Rocks, PA (Along the Ohio, 2)
Right outside of Pittsburgh where the tracks
just vanish into grey and no one sees
them end, there is a woman who knows well
where trains go when they pass this empty hub.
She leaves no tracks in snowfall, makes no sound
just hovers in the spot where her dad crashed.
She waits for trains, and sucks each one into
the void where she is stuck is search of him.
It’s been one hundred years that he’s been gone
Since then she’s absorbed 18 errant trains
one for each year she lived, and still no Da.
It’s only coal cars that go down this route,
a turnoff by the river isn’t clear,
from time to time a train gets lost and ends
up down here at the vacant railway yard,
with station house worn bare of paint and panes.
A neighborhood behind pretends it’s gone
except for dogs who run along the tracks.
The children won’t go down there since they fear
a ghost, and parents will not speak the word.
Authorities have come in search of trains
lost off their routes, but never find a thing
suspicious, though they do report a chill
even in summer, when the heat is damp.
She doesn’t rattle chains, or stomp, or drift
along the tracks in phosphorescent haze.
Her goal is not to scare, but just to find
the father she has lost, so they can rest. ¶ 7:38 PM
