The Switching/Yard

Approaching Denver/Union Station

55 Approaching Denver/Union Station mccook, nebraska, white truck on a dirt road, probably work. light behind the clouds and the train shifts back/forth, 7 am in the dining car. jeanine, the attendant, cracks jokes: it ain’t easy balancin these plates, wanna try? one horse eating, pile of dead cars. read the brochure: the staff is well-compensated/ i don’t believe it, i say—to the bird perched on a stick in the sawgrass. there’s a lot of dying out here: split tree, possum starved or half-eaten next to a mother and her calf/ nothing as beautiful as a split rail fence. the perfect hay bales make me nervous, but i love the mounds/sexual in their rise, the train hard on the curve. 3 decades ago i claimed the west as bloodline: we’re both twice-named: the camouflaged birthright, the father on my certificate a fraud. falling down barn with that gray weather color— dead wood. the old green tractor, what could be unmarked native burial grounds. corporate oil vats/ playground, then cornfield again. nebraska. nothing happening but flatness/ everything happens behind the door. i’m at home on the train, its blankness and anonymity/I’m at home when I’m not at home/ in all the buried stories— my birthmother who wouldn’t meet me/then wouldn’t speak the truth. house, barn, silo, propane. lone deer in the cornfield. trestle. nearing the city, suVs. cattlestopping bridges only humans can cross— the train slows to a glide—no more rocking and we’re moving on a blanket of air—double suspension of on the way to and smooth—like heaven— 56 stop for a signal, then lurch on. now concrete overpasses, now highway lights— development. everything back to the narrowing/ single-family homes from the 200s smash together w/ a brick school in the middle, passing for neighborhood. everything thickening: fed ex truck—orange barrels and earth movers— stubby truckcabs on the way to pick up their load. i count 265 top-open cars of coal, El Jardin Restaurant Pawnbank & Liquor Store, J&B Auto Crusher, approaching Denver/ Union Station. 2nd fed ex, dead/tree, trailer park. National Western Club and Beef Palace Arena, Da Hook-Up Bar/down to the underground caverns of the railyard. church spires of denver city in the distance, the chain-link fence. the narrowing of poverty and no meal tonight goes on and on. kid on a bike, discarded light signals with the laid-down x, brand new port-o-johns. condos to the left/ elevated highway to the right, train wheels strain with the forward and back-up into the station. noise of metal grating/uneasy fulcrum about to give, i don’t want to switch/ back to the city/don’t want to return/ pass the old rio grande ski train with its red lounge seats. like it’s sat there for years, paint scraped off the side. threading through the civilized world, my heart back with the split/ rail fence, deer in the cornfield. ...