Give the two of us your slow moan whistle,
long empty freight train from out of the south.
Give us your low light, Mississippi train,
pound on through this gray afternoon hanging
over the mottled crashing heavy waves
beneath the trestle. Rattle me like a darling
baby boy (something has to) this April
afternoon while we sit with our fried food.
We're at Amanda's in Bay St. Louis.
The waitress watches me watch the train.
I think that she has the same longing to go
that I do. But I am wrong. She tells us
about a man at this table over here
who cursed her and her sweet bread pudding
one Independence Day because he sat
for two hours, and never saw a train.
That's what we do to one another, she
says. Besides, you get so used to it. Me
I say, when I was young I loved that sound,
because I thought someone was coming home.
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