Tracks and Trails

Tracks and Trails

I balance-beamed the tracks, tucks and leaps, 

a cartwheel. The only danger was to my ankles, 

those long-abandoned tracks rusted over, moving 

toward archaeology. My brothers announced their 

targets, pelted the strips to trigger their hidden song, 

that ethereal waver of stone-on-steel only children 

ever hear, music that never had a tune. We plucked 

coal and pig iron, Easter eggs secreted among the 

shoring stones, spikes. The planks of wood were 

auburn until the weather and chemistry drip-dyed 

them. I picked strawflowers that pressed up among 

them, marveled over what spices had been dropped 

here like a flower girl's wedding petals. So many 

thousands of groaning cars skated along these blades,

cut these trails, so long ago and oh! They shone.

First appeared in the Loyalhanna Review