hit by a train
yesterday morning i got hit by a train
but the wind in the wheels screaming
was the sound of my lungs expelling hope
after half an hour of stillness the passengers
took their airpods out of their ears and
looked out of the cataracted window panes
out of someone's phone trickled a line of
tangled up in blue, bob dylan, 1975 album
blood on the tracks
and i was standin on the side of the tracks
rain fallin on my shoes tied up in knots
when the big rusted machine pulled out
i followed it down the train tracks
unable to breathe with the pressure
of 900 wheels on my chest
i saw a hospital and walked in mangled
up in red as i was but they didn't take
my insurance so i walked out
i remembered woodie guthrie sayin about
how the people with nothin give everything
and the people with everything damn scared
of you, illegal immigrant, and you, bright-faced
beautiful fucking human being you are
so i walked on down to the station
felt the soles of my feet
raptured for tiredness
i asked an old man there for a hug
he gave me his dirty blanket and his last
five dollars and oxy for the pain
and some sexual advances
but then again nothing can be perfect
i was still bleeding out of my mouth and nose and ears
and eyes and fingertips so i could
hardly feel anything but pain
and i felt like those pages of books
that are so discolored from greasy fingers
and the old man had a couple books
old-fashioned kind 90s cheap paper binding
old-school reads too dante and don quixote
and i asked the old man if he'd read them
and he said they were the same book
and he'd written it like god wrote the bible
and i said god or devil i've been hit by a train
and he said child i've been hit by many trains
it's why the pages so brown with blood and sweat
and i whistled and i held the books tight
like twin children of promise that pain
is only pages long
early the next mornin the sun wasn't shinin
and i was layin between the ties like two bedposts
and in that sad red morning glow i saw
in the old man's hands a red guitar
all scratched and crappy and scarred
but shaped like a person with hips and chest
he handed it to me and my fingers made
the red strings redder like blood on the tracks
but i held it close like someone you make love to
and played bob dylan poorly as i laid on those red ties
and in the rumble of my voice the vibrations of the strings
the vibrations of the rusty metal rails, beautifully
one train headed toward me muralled
like a church mosaic spray painted
rusty like the people inside
and i closed my eyes and played my song
as those 900 wheels so many miles from home
collapsed my chest and took my breathe and
took my tears in years of expectations
trauma and pain until it passed
and when i got done lookin up at the sky i looked
over and the old man had died
clinging to those books like me my guitar
and i looked down at my arms the bloody strings
and myself of blood on the tracks and i held him
close enough to whisper i love you
and then i picked myself up and walked, bleeding
on to the next station
—December 2021, Stanford, CA
