The Fitchburg Railroad            

                      

I know this train is going fast

Just by the way the leaves snap up

In the diesel-smoky wind.

We pass one train, black as a pipe,

 

Full of corn syrup, going to Littleton’s cider mill.

The topless corrugated metal cars

Show they’re loaded with apples:

The crowded fruit gleams like ruddy cobblestones.

 

I can see through one empty Boston and Maine car,

Its sliding doors are left open. A hobo peeks

Out through another decade. Or it’s Walt again,

Singing about my fierce-throated beauty,

 

The lawless music of the locomotive’s whistle,

Which reminded Thoreau of a hawk’s scream,

And he’s right, that’s just what it sounds like:

That celebratory call it makes for the pissed-off

 

Squirrel pinched in his talons. The red

Lollipop lights ahead flash in panic,

A truck stalls at the crossing,

And we don’t even slow down.

 

-Marguerite McGrail

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