Josh Pearce
On the Express
There you go flying down
a one-way track
in an iron corset
all done up in the back
with steel-rail stitching
that pinches you into an arrow
dynamic figurehead.
Coal sparks in your eyes.
Your hair streaming behind you like smoke
and at night the people listen
to your long, low, mourning cry.
During the day the boys whistle
as you flash past,
rocking them on their heels,
mussing their hair with puffs of air,
and you whistle back
and then you are gone,
pushed along by the weight
of everything behind
to the end of the line.
You’re on a tight schedule to get there
but even if you make it on time,
you’ll just turn around
and go back to where you started.
Spinning wheels,
hiss of frustration,
but what if
you jump track
and thunder off into the desert
where no one can find you,
or if you plow into one of those sunflower fields
that you’re always passing,
but never see
into a new, two-dimensional venture?
Your hair smells of smoke,
your brain must be on fire.
Rivets pop off like buttons,
boiler comes apart at the seams,
leaving behind your baggage cars
and parasitic passengers,
picking up steam.
Pieces of your overwrought casement
litter the path behind you
like discarded petticoats and blouse,
chest to the wind,
and a pennywhistle screech
in the rush of air
on the rebel express to nowhere
and even more daring
when you look up into a third
dimension all of light
and startled birds.
And with a steam scream,
up you leap! hair
billowed around you like
a rocket’s plume
on the dreamer express
to everywhere.
_______________
Josh Pearce is a fiction writer and poet from the San Francisco Bay Area. He currently works as an editorial assistant at Locus magazine. You can find him on Twitter: @fictionaljosh or at fictionaljosh.com.
Editor’s Note: Image collage of Steam Railway Furka-bergstrecke, Gletsch, Furka Pass
and from Maxpixel: Superhero, Girl, Speed, Runner, Running, Lights, Space.
