anchorage alaska, 9:40 a.m
the mountains, 9:41
the dead trees, 9:42
the snow, 9:43
your face, woven into the scenery, 9:44

it is beginning to hollow,
the night, kindling it's daggers around the day,
and i tell you, so silent
as to not wake our voices yet,
"the train is coming."

you are on the boulders,
naked feet,
shoes lost in the shore
and you look at me and smile
and my eyes crease,
like thin wrinkles,
like wire, pulling them shut,
and i smile back.

i cannot think.
the train is approaching,
rumbling over the tracks
like a thunderstorm,
like an avalanche.
and you open your mouth to scream,
but it comes out a roar.

like accumulating rain
in the groove of a gutter,
you're there beside me
and we're both screaming.

and I can feel myself lurching
towards the rails
because at 9:55,
as the train passes us,
i look over
at the naked boulders
at the rising tide
at the burning tracks
and you're gone.

The night wrapped its skeletal arms
back around your ghostly form.
the rain had stopped,
the gutter was clean,
and everything
was a miserable empty