tracks

Two lines of rusted steel run
parallel to the highway,
veering two miles south of town
just where the old blacksmith shop

once stood and, rumor has it,
Mr. Murphy shot his wife
and her lover at the turn
of another century.

Except where they slow
for the intersection by the school
and cemetery, the trains

rumble past the houses and shops
that make up Mesquite Bend
from early in the morning
until late at night. Mike Keel,
who lives just yards from the tracks,

takes an hour every Saturday
to straighten the pictures his wife
has hung on their many walls,
only to wince as the next rumble

inches the frames just a little
more sideways. The Reiser children
like to count the cars streaming by,
dreaming about the pretty things
locked away behind the graffitied boxes.

One time, a train with two engines
and more than a hundred cars
came to a stop on the tracks
for three hours, as children
from all over town scurried
around the caboose, making friends

with two conductors
and the engineer. Many kids
have tightroped these tracks
running away from home
or a whipping, but true as steel

the tracks always
lead them home.

Ramona Levacy
April 23, 2015