Tracking the Past
Tracks stretch across
barren winter fields
yet their steel trace
like a snail's trail appears polished,
glinting in dying light,
stifling your breath,
towards a dark shed
doors creak
like a sprinter's graveled gasp.
However, birds don't sing
above the stretched tram lines,
you cannot speak
in jolting cattle wagons,
screeching their approach
fingers like frantic worms
drilling between their
wooden slats.
Then doors release
the cargo then funnels
into iron holding pens
in quick-step lines
each is tagged
prodded into wooden sheds
you're now in narrow single beds
tettering on sharp edges
lurking behind screens.
Pressing,
your warm flesh
on windows iced,
watch the blackbirds gathering,
as neatly labeled
gas canisters haze
like mustard seed
clouded in emerald mold.
Peppered panes
dusted by mottled-ash,
steamed by your breath,
shuddering into deeper tones.
Clutching
in Cumbrian wrestler grasp
your herded panic reverberates.
The rolling cloud cloaks
the silent sleeping earth.
Our final clench
is warm flesh on flesh
Copyright © Brian Duffield | Year Posted 2019
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