Untitled - Campbell University

By the Tracks
You died over there by the tracks
that run between our houses,
when the ladder on the train
clipped the back of your head,
opening it like a melon
for half the world to devour.
Some said they could see splotches
of your brains on the gravel
where the ties protruded beneath the rails.
I found only old pennies,
flattened by the roaring wheels
we listened for, playing our game,
two careless boys under stars and clouds,
waiting, breathless, vibrations rumbling
through us like the quake of teenage love,
jumping to safety just in time.
Timing you said was essential
as you lifted the dead rat,
the trophy we had found while
hunting in the woods, and dropped it
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