Railway To Hell

The Gypsy jumped from car to car,

never getting off the train

In Davenport through morning fog,

the old town looked the same

The prairies waited in the dark,

the Rockies far beyond

In Denver’s wind he heard the words

to an oft-forgotten psalm

The engine roared, the distance called,

the rails went on and on

The desert lit the night on fire,

to burn the right from wrong

A Reno stop to take on water,

drowning in the past

Through farms and fields and countryside,

to Stockton now at last

His feet stepped down to touch the earth,

and genuflect once more

Before reboarding, headed East

—perdition his true lord

(Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania: April, 2020)