Delay the departing train
down at the rail head,
the heart has four chambers
but only one fully ticketed love.
Then spin the cylinder with gentleness
place the antique funnel of it with care,
you want this geyser single life to blow
a detonation and aftershock of lyrical candela.
Run run over the soaked platform
slide slip and screech to a rattling tin sky,
turn around the face at the blotting window
chant it breathe it grasp it at the handle.
Make the rusty stoker from the taste of cinnamon
get there scramble by the step up,
in you go trip over the stranger’s stare
open the scrapbook at things that should have stuck.
Tell her things falling apart are beginning again
of how quicksand is not a way to be cleansed,
the one-way fare was all the carriage ever needed
and you still feel its mad career taking you beyond destination.
First published in Bluepepper
Unstill Mosaics The Book of Love, Loss, and Longing 2019
James Walton Poetry 