There's a train track that runs right down
the wrong side of this factory death town.

No train has come this way in twenty years.

Cloaked in shifting shades of gray,
this cat clawed ragman shambles past,
his rib bones rattle like xylophones.

Wild eyed,
he watches the funnel cloud that closely follows.
A toe pokes through a sock, sticks through a shoe.
Little cinder dust swirls rise and sink in his steps.

Beside the track,
an old crow picks the bones of some dead thing.
So he stops there and digs the grave, pounds in the marker,
mutters, rants, and chuckles.

He gathers himself,
then writhes on down the track.

04/23/2009

Author's Note: rattle that drywall like mad cow's disease

Posted on 04/24/2009
Copyright © 2026 David Hill