Train Sleep

by C.P. Varnum

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December 2, 2011

Tonight I realized 

with the trees slowly undressing,  

baring their nude trunks and skinny arms for us once again,  

that I can see the train I hear every night 

from our front porch. 

It was the lamplight that gave it away. 

A sodium lamp. 

A streetlight that lights no street, only the rails  

just before the roadway. 

It flickered in time with the click-clack 

of wheels on ties, 

a giant steel metronome. 

The same rhythm I have known since childhood— 

those invisible trains that work in the night. 

Their whistle low and earthy. A prolonged mourning wail  

diffused through my bedroom windows, 

sustained me to sleep. 

But tonight I am awake, while my own child sleeps 

behind me, in the bedroom. 

I wonder if she will hear 

her own memories suspiring   

in the faded echo of the train whistle.