The Train and the Room Out Back

A train went by in the distance and I could hear it passing every few hours or so from the back bedroom of my grandfather’s house My room, when mom came home after she and dad derailed, but the train out back was always certain to its track.... no burden that I needed to understand. My room, and commuter’s haven in college, and mom felt so much better with me moved back in the house in case the old man fell. And when she fell first, the spill shut down the town and the Train roared into that long awake night out in the back. Still my room when I moved away with the years, and understood that home is more of a time than a place, both slipped beyond the great reclaim. You were there once, and I’m sure the train went by that night but neither one of us heard the roll. Years later, my sister and I sold the house, and I slept the closing eve in that room out back the farewell caravan pealing on by the foot board-- moving on with the moving on, it’s boxcar back always open to the hobo---up for a jump.