The Train Took Him Away

An operatic plunge
before a fast-moving train
on a slow-moving Sunday
a week before
our first real snowfall.

Everything fades
He will only remember
the screeching and shrilling
of steel wheels on steel track
the squealing of
brakes like five hundred
half-strangled piglets.

The hum of the third rail
has its own siren song
should one choose to listen.

Child-like hopes
weaved by child-like adults
in summer camp bracelets.

Fifteen, fit, freckled
and fast.

Golden Goal

Seasons; I turn up my collar, open the front door, push out against the wind,
mouth pulled like the river in the plan I made of the park in double geography,
when the sun hits right I get used to the way parked cars distort my face,
there's a leaf in my glove, the nap of my boot seems wayward.

Thanks for seasons but they're wasted on me.
I'm not predicated on cycles anymore
all I think about is the war waged on weather by
my body.

Blitz ice, you could throw me arse over end, a Japanese burn in the canteen,
but the slow-arse cracking down the sides of my thumbs,
the sheet of fright when a hand opens up suddenly
near the lemons,
it's a piss-take.

I needed seasons but now they just happen,
the El Niño supergroup will make them without precedent,
and perhaps my hands will continue and crack,
perhaps it will just happen.