WEBVTT

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One more from this
grouping of poems

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of families and generations.

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It's a poem called
"Taking the Train Home."

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It's in three short
parts and it has in it

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a piece of train
data, which if you

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live in that 95% of
the country where

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trains are no longer
a live phenomenon,

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I may have to footnote.

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What you'll need to know
is what a roundhouse is.

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It's the answer to the question
and compelling to a small boy.

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How does a train turn around?

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I gave myself endless
headaches as a child

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trying to solve that problem.

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The boy in this poem apparently
has a similar difficulty.

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And his grandparents in the
middle section of the poem,

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when he's very
small, take him out

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to see a roundhouse, a
large circular building,

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which revolves like an
enormous lazy Susan.

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The locomotive goes in,
it's turned 180 degrees

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and the locomotive
comes back out.

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Fantastic.

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It was magical.

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It's still pretty good if
you can find a roundhouse.

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In the first section
of this poem though,

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before we get there, the boy
is, oh, I don't know, some age.

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Adolescence, maybe, seems to be.

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He's called home.

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Coming home on the train
because someone is ill.

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In the second section he's
being taken to the roundhouse

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by his grandparents.

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In the third section
taking the train home

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for the funeral of
his grandfather.

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The sections are
reasonably short

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and I'll give a number
for each of them.

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Number one.

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Dusk grew on the window.

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I listened for the click
of the seams and the rails

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to come at the same speed the
telephone wires sagged and then

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shot upward to the pole.

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All night I slept between the
rails, a boy on a stretcher.

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When I'd wake up
outside Chillicothe,

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I felt like a fish.

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Alfalfa and cows
appeared in as I

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went by in my aquarium,
my night in glass.

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Dawn flew against my window the
same way a fly swarms by itself

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against the heat of a bare
light bulb, like a heart attack.

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I'd be home soon, 7:15,
all out for Cincinnati.

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Two.

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Its Sunday and I'm only four.

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And my grandparents are
taking me to Sharonville

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to the roundhouse.

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Pop drives, the part and
the white crest of his hair

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is like a compass needle.

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Nan sings.

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From the back seat
I lean between them.

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I can feel the soot, the
cinders like black popcorn

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under my feet.

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The roundhouse ceiling is
charred by sparks and grime

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smears its highest windows.

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Coal cars smolder on sidings
while the engine turns away

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from its arrival.

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I was going to live
in a roundhouse

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when I grew up, a lighthouse.

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Every morning the moon
would steam in over the sea

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and turn around.

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The table would be
set for breakfast

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before I went to bed,
my little tower of pills

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beside the juice glass.

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My hair would be
white like Pop's.

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And by its light,
the ship's long paths

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of sleep and fuel oil, coffee
beans, brooms with real straw.

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By the light of my
hair ships would

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sleep into port and germinate.

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Three.

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In my dream I'm only four again.

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Pop is alive.

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He walks slowly, emphysema.

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I've eaten something metallic,
something I don't understand.

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I circle away from him to
vomit, among roadside weeds.

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I force it up.

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It's like gruel with
roofing nails for lumps.

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I love this dying man.

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I look up and he bobs
over a wave in the road.

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He's swimming out to sea.

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I begin following but
my legs are too short.

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Death is my father.

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This is my body,
which will fall apart.

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I'm sleeping on the ocean.

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I'm asleep on a train
outside Red Lion, Ohio.

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I don't know.

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I can't tell, but it seems to
me that if I could watch my body

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sleep, it would glow, growing
its antibodies to eternal life.

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Growing the lives we
give away when we wake.

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