DECEMBER 16

Set down, twinned steely aeons
of passing, of fixity and things
unfelt upon the sleepers' tongues.
The stone lifted, the split wood
and stations established and unseen
but perennial with the people
waiting,

in loss and becoming, stamped
over lines of poetry handled
by lines of gravid couriers
hanging onto trapezes metallic
grounded

with the heel of the machinations
they guide. Themselves the sons
and dream-works of the train
unbeknown and impoverished
by this,
harsh towing of a passing car
bearing the wind and the light
in a still dark morning funk
addressed by a floating ballast.