The grumble of a distant train shakes
me from dreams,
metallic smell
of her crusted veins lingering
in the moist air like a coming threat
of thunder. Fumbling
for the bathroom
light i
find myself
staring at a mirror
turned back to sand,
a shoreline of grainy morning
shadows where
the loneliest word is written

and erased by creeping tides,
traced and non-existed
like the back-and-forth
of a crosshead whose engine
chafes
to be off down the tracks,

my breath like her whistle
steaming for what lies
around the next stretch
of coast.