.UNDERSTANDING COMPOUNDED BY DEATH.

Pink shoelaces, silver sneakers, peacocks
embroidered up the legs of her jeans,
a tank-top printed with raised fists
and an oriental emptiness in her eyes.

He tells her she ought to have a T-shirt
to cover her tank-top. It gets cold
on the train. Just ordinary people here
caring for one another in ordinary ways.

Now, antennas take the place of smoke
stacks, but a child still runs without looking
and his mother cautions him back.
Luggage on the floor is the only obstacle.

These concrete slabs are for future homes
with bedrooms that skirt the railroad.
Something new comes, but the empty lots
are smiles with a front tooth missing.

The windows are broken out from the
Dever Heating Company building. Who
still looks up at the gray clouds and flocks
that gather one by one on the high wires?

Men are on the move, even if the grace
of money avoids some. They may go mad,
push a buggy by the junction, collect
dented soda cans, and never know why.

Shadows behind the hedge grow longer.
Soon, they match the night. Her lamp
with its beaded shade will be turned on.
All day they sort the ash, to sleep with ash.

A long train of rail cars runs parallel
to us for a while, weighted with grain
from the prairie and its wounds, past
the tankers polished in stations of light.

On a bench, a young man is overcome
with what is revealed. His stare ahead
means he reads what is on his soul, then,
he writes again so we may read along.

Something from the ancient Zohar sends
him out, pulls him in--the kingdom
of words and our need have the same root.
It is by telling that we gain release.

Bob Engler