Man Electrocuted on a Train in India by Robin Shepard

Indians on boats, trains, busses, packed into
cans like potted meat, smashed together until
each one disappears into the other, no one
alone and apart, the smell of one the smell of
all, their destinies the same, their fate taking
them on a journey they won’t survive. Boats that
capsize, sending dozens to the bottom, trains
derailing into tangled deep jungles, busses falling
off cliffs, so many lost the catalog can never
have enough pages, then still more to take
their place. This one, standing on top of the train,
others hanging out of windows, milling on
the platform, grabs a high-voltage line and
jumps once, twice, frozen with thousands of
volts, his body electric, smoking, collapsing
finally in a heap, smoldering, and the people
standing, looking, seeing this before, expecting
nothing as one death is meaningless, as many
are fathomless, as we are all anonymous in death.

Robin Shepard's poems have most recently appeared or will appear in Poetry Super Highway, Rats Ass Review, Autumn Sky Poetry, and Black Poppy Review. He is the author of Quiet Stars Falling into Quicksand Memory (Merced College Press, 2016).