Slow Train

Conditions have to be just right. No wind, as that generally comes from the northwest. As the crow flies, the tracks, across the river, are probably five miles due south. I'd gotten up to pee and went outside to see if it had snowed, no snow but one of those early mornings that measured very close to zero on the Stillness Index. I could hear a coal train laboring through South Shore, Kentucky (the south shore of the Ohio river, the northernmost tip of the state) and it gave me pause. Overcast and very dark. I got a drink and rolled a smoke, put on my bathrobe and sat on the back step. What it comes down to is a woeful blues song. That train in the distance, my dog died, and my truck won't start. A couple of fuzzy guitar riffs. The soprano is singing a Greek lament, what she wanted to have happened. A beauty pageant gone bad. Back to almost compete silence, then the train, pulling out of town. The soprano, railing in the distance. Cut to black. Something like that.

Lonesome train is calling
somewhere down the track.