Blanking
painted in blue, piped in gold: where
do all the lost trains go? skittering off
the rails, do they fly out the back of
our heads—crawl to the corners and
fall to rust (last puffy-cheeked
breaths falling flat)? or do the wheels
clunk along, chugging with blackened
lungs (like a smoker's) and hypothermic
joints, until it shatters. sheds
every nail and screw and cog
shivering its skeleton away:
drop dead.
until it collapses to side of the
tracks—tarnished metal crumpling to
the earth: the clutter of our minds. are
we prey to our own cancer?