Night Freight

Somewhere past the last lit window a train uncouples the dark, its long vowel dragged across the county like a finger on the rim of a glass.

I lie still and let it pass through me— the boxcars of everything unsaid, the flatbeds stacked with afternoons I meant to spend more slowly.

The rails keep their cold arithmetic, adding mile to mile without a sum, and the horn leans into the distance the way a question leans toward no one.

By morning the tracks are only tracks, two bright seams stitching the field shut. But the sound stays, a freight of its own, hauling me back to the platform of sleep, where I am always nearly leaving.