Bursting with youth, this ten-year-old boy
flies through the heavens of fields, as he jumps
down embankments, rolls down toward the train
tracks. Two friends follow, tumble – one loses
the race. “I win again!” he boasts to both
buddies, the ones with skinned and skinny legs.

Up they clamber, a new race begun, legs
pumping like pistons, arms flailing, each boy
on missions unknown to the world. Both
sides of this valley, wild chasms for jumps
and mountains for conquest. He who loses
this land is banished, derailed as a train.

Their game is frozen by a whistling train
from a distance. They stand straight with their legs
bruised and dirty. All else recedes, loses
importance. Finally the oldest boy,
a stringbean of twelve, says, “Whoever jumps
this train last is a wuss.” eyeing them both.

Budding maleness challenged, the young ones both
follow him to the tracks. The nearing train
shimmers black in the heat. The eldest jumps
aboard a boxcar like a hobo, legs
dangle tauntingly, and the second boy
vaults on. The ten-year-old then leaps, loses

the contest, scrambles on the ledge, loses
his grip altogether. Terrified, both
his friends grab for his frantic arms. The boy,
despite their help, is dragged down by the train,
under, under that awful place where legs,
arms and lives are expendable. It jumps

him like a metal animal. It jumps
with a terrible sharp weight. He loses
consciousness, mercifully, as his legs
are taken by the biting wheels. They both
are lost to him now. He wakes from a train
nightmare. Someone says, “You’re a lucky boy.”



He never loses faith, and soon has both
legs made of alloy. He thinks of the train
rarely, and he still jumps – still a whole boy.

10/04/2001

Posted on 10/04/2001
Copyright © 2025 Bruce W Niedt