Rail by Kai Carlson-Wee

Author:Kai Carlson-Wee
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781942683599
Publisher: Perseus Books, LLC
Published: 2018-03-09T05:00:00+00:00

When the Crew Change is finished,

the bull drives by with a floodlight

shocking the walls. Stopping to walk

down the blue forty-eights. I can feel

his boots on the ballast beside me,

searching the rideable wells. All my luck

and starless fate and prayers are his

alone. I know he knows I’m here.

Still, tonight, the flashlight turns.

The air brakes start their slow release.

The U-locks lurch and slam in place

and the whistle redeems me, washed in time,

in the fine-silt clay of the Red River,

washed in the unrelenting wind. It is washed

in the blood of thieves and outlaws,

washed in the wild drunk calls of bandits

and minor dealers and riffraff apostles

and all the ragged crews of my youth.

The ones who ran and the ones who wandered back,

swearing to never return. It is washed

in the words of my father’s sermon, my mother’s

sermon the same, and I hear it sing

in the mainline metal and curse and anoint

the American prairie and ride my crooked veins.

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