When I Can’t Sleep - Dorianne Laux

I listen to the boxcars coupling, the exhaled crush like air
squeezed through a ragged metal hole or wind unwinding

in an abandoned drainage pipe, like the one we used to hide in
when we were kids, drawing cocks dripping tears with a stolen

lipstick, rippling vaginas with a black magic marker, scrubbing
our names onto the pocked cement with broken coal, dusk making

a cameo at one end of the tunnel. A rough thunder. A sluggish
crash. The undercarriage screech. If I close my eyes I can see

blue sparks the steel wheels make as they grind the rails. The smell
of oil mixed with dust. Weeds between the ties bend low, blown

sideways in the gust, then pop back up and stand there like nothing
happened. Saddest sound in the universe: coupling. Like loneliness

itself. Something about the yielding machinery and the stuff of bodies
hurtling through space. Nothing emptier than an empty boxcar, doors

cranked open on both sides, the blurred landscape rushing through,
warehouses, backyards, slipping by.