Commuter Poem by Francis Santaquilani

Somewhere between steel towns
Her there-and-back jumped the track,
And became scrap.
She rides alone
Among the ride prone.
A painted woman with cryptic bangs. Her

Sunrise rumbles around the bend and
Takes a blowtorch to the night,
Rakes black shapes over sharp corners.
How white she glows
From the night side looking out.
A glimmer in the eye of a doll. She

Blooms from a nook in the brickwork and
Steps out from a smoke in a billboard.
A plastic flower greets a cold light.
The world can shake around her.
Splintered wooden platform's
Scars deepen and

Dirty blackened brick crumble.
Green metal flakes rush to powder and swirl.
Her red slice smile cuts as wrong and long
As a laugh at a wake. Dreams
Fumble at her white face.
She's on schedule.

Telic to the hilt
Like the train that dies before her pleats
And hits her spot dead on.
A balletic boarding. Ride and rider meld.
If only the ride were eternal and
All steel towns evanesce.