Rain, Steam and Speed-The Great Western Railway
(J. M. W. Turner)

Life between the rails
Price paid for rhythm
Working its way
Into the conversation we have
With the couple from Kamloops
Over drinks in the bar car
Elongated shadows of stem ware
Clocking snow white prairie  
Dotted with one stoplight words
Nothing more
Than a few boarded up syllables
Struggling vowels of a diner
Slash package store
Emphatic final
Consonants of grain elevators
Trailing off into long stretches of silence
Stealing glimpses of the future
On grand sweeping curves
While the past rifles
Our pockets on the perfect
Parallel track of the here and now.