the sound of a night train
sails through cold
desert air
in a small shack
at the edge of a town
a young woman stares
through a window at the train’s
passing lights and dreams
herself aboard a boxcar
on the way to San Francisco
New York or Chicago
she feels the rumble of passing
cars in her body hears the whistle
looping ahead in darkness
imagines it announces her passage
on way to a new life filled
with music dance fine clothes
and applause of an admiring public
once more the train has faded into
a long empty night she slides onto
her cot but is unable to sleep
a coyote howls nearby
a cacophony of dogs replies
she knows she should drift off
as she has the morning shift
at the truck stop cafe her mind
remains aboard that train
the wind rises and shakes
the walls of her room for a second
she thinks she is riding a rumbling boxcar
Michael L. Newell lives on the Florida coast. He has had approximately one thousand poems published over the past forty years, and has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize.
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