THE RAILROAD ENABLING ACT OF 1866
i remember what a train was,
when coal meant everything
to the overalled men in red bandannas;
when each lump in the living pile
was a work of muscle,
a fleshpiece
of a burnable body
with smoke
caught by the sky and pulled back like long dark hair.
when a shovel was nothing more than that,
but something less than a tool for
building,
held as it was
by
dead calloused hands
working below
faces
with sweat pooling in the wrinkles and dripping
at each click of shifting weight.
past couplings that held the new world together
and onto dust and weeds and skeletons
wilted under steaming tonnage,
onto cross ties of spiked wood and
leaving a trail
of curses,
bastards
and
bones.
as if the incision and blade of track were not enough.
INHERITANCE
it has come unhinged:
the potato sack from the racer’s hands
the metal screws from reunited bones
the drip of moonshine from the still
the way unthreatened animals walk,
all gone.
except the insects
who can still inhabit a flower
and thrive on
small vacuums
we fail to fill:
like the eye of a needle—
watch a tiny red spider span that with a web.
or network tv
batting its eyelashes
so we carry it on our shoulders and
walk over mud with it, undirtied.
and true,
so much laughter
when lightning spills
our bloated abdomen,
hitting just below the navel,
that our rib cage swings open too—
a screen door slamming against a deserted
farmhouse—
lungs like tumbleweeds skipping out
and the heart that is seldom more than a pump
set free and making excuses.
I HEAR THE MILKMEN COMING WITH CREAM ON THE MORNING
in long shadows
a walking finger
selects underwear.
raw wood drawer
opens with cough,
spins a ceiling fan
that chops light
into cold grains of rice
parachuting.
feet, at the moment
of socks,
realize the love possibilities
of being home
even with hair growing gray.
sun opens frosty window
of bedroom,
half-risen eyelids of flowers
unhurriedly moisten,
the bathroom avoids a sweatshirt
and runs hot water,
mirror sees hair of beard
as parenthetical to skin of face,
two nights on either side of this day
are dark clamps,
rested fanatics
apologizing for their work.
arrowed back to sleep
after tiring urination,
the bed awakens me later.
in rubefacient tree,
the bird is a french ambulance.
a living siren
well into the next century.
THE WORLD IS FLAT
if anything is a lie
it is that which is mystic
and not understood:
a butterfly evulsed from a
walking worm uncocooned and
kissing anything under mistletoe.
missile toe—
a deadly projectile
that can travel long distances
from the end of your foot
and carry
war heads
if necessary
in its nose.
a lie
whose issuance
is
directed by headquarters
(a term in which you can’t have much confidence),
whose goal is to impart
to many
quickly,
what an
elected change of power
takes too long
to do:
to hit the bullseye
of the target,
a human’s eye
being insufficiently big
to strike with accuracy from
too far.
a bridge
too far in brooklyn
sells you a george washington
crossing choppy water you don’t have the stomach for
but, in a boat
indistinguishable
from a cannon volley,
ignited
by sparks seeking gravity
cold and faceless as
Thunder.
a lie
at the heart of the matter, is
a reservoir of blood
where the bayonet goes in deep
if they even do battle like that anymore.
Livio Farallo is co-founder/co-editor of Slipstream. His work has appeared in The Cardiff Review, The Cordite Review, The Blotter, North Dakota Quarterly, Misfit, Poetry Salzburg Review, and elsewhere.
OVUNQUE SIAMO 