There, on a midnight railway,
beyond the static
of the locusts,
a small, broken hum
from an old radio
blinks in and out,
in and out,
through Cuyahoga Valley
when Ohio was for lovers.
A golden sepia-toned starlet
leans on the glass
of the window
and wonders
as the steam blows
from the engine ahead.
A man in a frock coat
and a three-piece suit
tips his hat
as her wonder floats
into the aisle
where it collides
with his glistening glare.
Her rosy, peach cheeks pull
her mouth to her ears,
and she can hear
the distant voices
of California, the wild
calling her name. There,
where the cars drive
faster, the trees turn
to telephone poles,
and the lights burn
an afterimage
into the eyes of twilight—
puddles spilt
in the street, reflecting
the stoplights, the theater,
the neon signs
that curl fingers inwards
to lift skirts and seduce
prey, to convince onlookers
to buy lipstick and pearls
that bleed and coil
like snakes around the necks
of the Beautiful
and the Enlightened.
And it pulls like a venom,
pulsing,
a steam engine traveling
across the skin
of a Hollywood dream,
where it once whistled
like a biting catcall,
that now, sits amongst
the brush and thistle
to shelter the rabbits
from the foxes’ mouths,
an orchestra of crickets—
the sounds of the night
begging
the locomotive to move
again under God’s collection
of dying stars, wheels
that once turned as time does.