The Last Locomotive Poem by Christopher Anthony Leibow

My mouth is filled
with the taste of rust
and sex. I sweat above her
& a dropp falls
into the
shallow of
her neck -

the dropp vibrating like oil
on the ground from the passing
train – carrying coal to keep
the cities burning.
In my chest, the drone of a fly–
wheel

a counter weight
a boiler
a bag of bees




She is below me
I feel her heart
it is an abrasion
a bruise
a beating fist
a bed of nails

This is how it is.

and here we are
lunging back
and forth like a stoker
our breath chasing

after the last locomotive
plaintively pulling away
from the station



published in Arsenic Lobster 2011