Train 640 to Ottawa
Miles Davis obvious
she sits across oblivious
a faint wash of smile
as I wipe newspaper fingerprints
of the white surface of the laptop
and insert Sketches of Spain
(it’s lost Canadian producer kept
safely in the liner notes)
trumpet and castanets in old stereo
left-right in new headphones
the clatter and sway of the rail
this way from towers to towns
thru scrubby gaps of the once bush
November spaces between
sprawl’s serrated border
and country, field, rock
the great lake, the great highway
the iron-road an insurgent parallel
she’s a painted character unread
a plain woman asleep
leather jacket, gray slacks
on at Oshawa off to Ottawa
pre-cambrain rumble
tumble of ice mumble
let it be simple science
as the boy and then girl tip syllables
from tongue to language
we could talk about jazz or an ice age
the shield-edge blur past Kingston
white houses with sun-sharp geometry
she’s awake at Brockville
but I stay silent as theory
refusing to be that sly devil
a percussive trumpet protects
from the need to break apart
the constituencies of silence
ignore the dull dialectic
as that train chat swells
like the river’s volume
freezing up Rideau’s old locks
someone happy once being
and the knowing of it
here now at Smith’s Falls
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Published in Misunderstandings Magazine Issue 9