The Forgiven
Held captive and caged
in a tin shed,
an old steam train sulks
in its own stillness, a relic
from another age.
Its skin is cold and hard
and has the smell
of vintage grease.
The fire that once blazed
in its belly has withered
to a coating of black soot
stuck to the bottom
of a furnace box,
the steamy snort
from its nostrils, silenced
to a dewy drip. The huge
wheels that were pumped
by furious pistons
have come to a halt
and now are welded
to rails by rust.
Admirers lovingly pat
its iron carcass. The poisons
it spewed out clogging the lungs
of a generation have dissipated
in memory, its breath now
sweetened by a forgiving
nostalgia, the veneer
of a more innocent past.
Somewhere,
stuck on a siding,
its brutish beauty
still sits panting in the damp
of an autumn afternoon,
immune from time,
absolved of guilt.
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