DC to NYC

This is a kind of apocrypha
traveling by train in the mid afternoon
when the sun can’t decide between the two twilights

down the corridor the leaves and their trees
in contrast to the west this is all seasonal

however blurred you can’t forget
the dispersion of trash
how every tenement is really called
a tenement living apart from itself
breathes in black and white

the sum of knowledge: brick can be stained
iron light posts: limp just off center

while the tracks thread through
a long settled wilderness
whispers and the things you might here
among a caravan of strangers
while you pass that one white post
sitting behind the corner of soot
these tracks were never meant to travel
this fast makes me miss something
essential

independence corridor causes me tension
she wore a peach colored skirt
and white sweater in stifling heat
whatever she hid I could imagine it better

by the Philadelphia station you cry
missing something greener than mock sentiment
lofty in the mission and child like ancestry
so much for youth and the west’s wild and ancient
trees here seem to migrate with you

I’ve been carrying a leave I picked up near Union station
it must’ve been the only one for a thousand miles

and I can’t imagine that light grows brighter
esconced in conrete.