Train-comet Poem by Valerio Magrelli

TRAIN-COMET

The claimant's request is based on the premise that, following
passage of a freight train, a fire spread from the nearby tracks to
his own adjoining property, destroying his crops. He further claims
that the fire was started by a fail-ure to disengage the brakes, when
the train was already in motion, from the wheels of a single boxcar,
unleashing a series of flying sparks. The mechanic's report, here
attached, suggests that ducts obstructed by oil impurities jammed the
brakes, resulting in red hot shoes and treads, and a burned out chassis.
(from sentence no. 6826/87, ROME CIVIL COURTS)



Train-comet,
bewitched matchbox, iron
grinding against the rails,
brake pulled, friction,
screeches, train-
strain, mangling the night.
I was approaching with blocked wheels
contracted vertebrae
hyphenated-words,
and from my strain stemmed heat
and color, and an odor
of burnt flesh:
sparks, tongues of fire
raining in the night.
Oh, braking boxcars, hyphenated-words,
fricative that I am, picture of friction.