The Autumn Railroad

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The Autumn Railroad

it was a place of great indifference, the type

of indifference that only happens in limbo, in the

final brush of breeze that tears a red leaf from a

stem, from a freeze-frame photograph,

that – somehow – lingers in a memory,

even though the paper was torn in half

long ago.

It was a place of great sorrow, the sultry

kind but also the kind that made kindness a

mirage or a fantasy or a dream that was beyond

all horrors due to the horror that happened there.

And when it happened – where the two tracks came

together over the bridge – where the two

boys used to bike on Sundays, where they decided

to go on Saturday instead – that’s where Autumn

never came again, that’s where the leaves never fell,

that’s where they fell to the leaves, where the leaves

don’t seem so red anymore, where anymore became

always mourn, and where morning met

the end of the road.

It was a place only for snow.

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