I was twelve years old when we crossed those tracks
smell of death still hanging fresh in the summer air
the same smell as a hog killing; blood being poured,
entrails piled in wash pots, the smell is all the same.
Nineteen sixty-four we’d eaten
barbeque for lunch that afternoon and you
dropped me off at the movie theater alone cause
you had someone important to do and I would
just be cramping your style… late picking me up too,
and you had been partying, that I do remember.
An army veteran of war having seen destruction
you were not adversely affected by the train’s devastation.
An entire little league team in the back of that blue pickup
their driver never even slowed down at the unmarked crossing.
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