He held the train tracks close to his chest
On days so slow he thought they’d thaw
And that the center would drop out the bottom
Of the planet’s soft, warm core.
Those days his brain would hum and buzz,
Pick up the frequencies of far-off radios,
Carry to him fragments of the lives others led,
Unexamined, perhaps, but each still a thing
Of endless unspoolings and fascinations,
Like butterflies pinned to a board of cork.
Walking home beside the tracks
He always felt lighter, somehow renewed,
Staring in barn windows, counting the wires
That strung overhead and connected the town,
A long silver thread of thoughts to be heard,
Then plucked, pinned and ossified, smoother than stones.
Shannon Cuthbert
Shannon Cuthbert is a Brooklyn-based writer and visual artist. Her poems have appeared in Enchanted Conversation, Voices, The Mystic Blue Review, and Three Drops from a Cauldron, among others.
Artwork: Rob Woodcox, Dinosaurs
Website: http://robwoodcox.com/
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