The Gypsy jumped from car to car,
never getting off the train
In Davenport through morning fog,
the old town looked the same
The prairies waited in the dark,
the Rockies far beyond
In Denver’s wind he heard the words
to an oft-forgotten psalm
The engine roared, the distance called,
the rails went on and on
The desert lit the night on fire,
to burn the right from wrong
A Reno stop to take on water,
drowning in the past
Through farms and fields and countryside,
to Stockton now at last
His feet stepped down to touch the earth,
and genuflect once more
Before reboarding, headed East
—perdition his true lord
(Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania: April, 2020)
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