Rolling the soy fields of western Minnesota
on the tracks of a hundred-mile straightaway,
my brother and I claiming sides of the train,
squatting on the porch-grating, the draw and exhaust
of our own breath quickened to the clip
of the wheel-rhythm. We've been here before––
Minneapolis to Portland, a double-stack
grinding us toward the town we grew up in,
the flood-ruined churches and tenement
homes of Fargo, the converted depot
where so many years ago we smoked cigarettes
with the Indian hobo who called himself Ghost,
who showed us how to hide on a freight train.
We could have gone anywhere this time,
but here we are again: riding the high-line rails
in their endless convergence west––the Red,
the Missouri, the Columbia––brothers
bound for the Gorge, the blue breakers
of the Pacific. What did we think could bond us
this time that failed to bond us before?
What did we think we could add to the passion
of the first glissade on dunes, the first time
we ran at the waves together and were beat back
coughing on the sand? When they hammered
the golden spike at Promontory Summit,
Utah, 1869, and the first transcontinental railway
was complete, the engineers campaigned
for other lines west––the Great Northern,
the Southern Pacific, the Canadian route from Bonfield
to Vancouver. Anything that would let them
struggle to connect those distances again.
Not to be heroes, not to fulfill some destiny
the history books spoon-fed us in middle school.
Sure, there was money, but let's not fool
ourselves—their motivations were deeper.
The private desire to stand in the wind, to live
your whole life over again. And as the air-brakes
wheeze the train to a silent, catchable drift,
my brother and I already know why
we're slowing, already know how to hide
from these bulls, already know what town this is.