15.11.12

The train to Kalamazoo from Milwaukee

 
 
Then prairie, now forest clumps, water towers

Shots of hot pink and vertical stands of lime reeds

Cattails, ranch houses, poplars and irises

Wisconsin farms sprinkled with new crops

Cocoa tassled deer grass blown back by this passing train

Errant loosestrife and duckweed thicken the trackside marshes

Dust, bobcats and helmeted workers

Shiny taut horses with black brooms sweeping flies

Copper roofs, snags, backs of warehouses tumble by

sunlit shadows, parallel roads,

Leaving it, faster and faster. Saturating greens, all sorts

Where is the red of fall in this much longed for spring?

Cyclone fencing, power poles forewarn the city.

A girl stands astride a bike at the corner

of Thistle and Hazel, her hair is black and her backlit pink cruiser

pronounces itself

A wash of blues behind her sharp silhouette.

Brick, a sure sign of urban living, ahead, around the curve.

Rough necks, crayfish supplies, lottery and checks cashed.

Outlet stores and red striped cement trucks.

Victorian clatter traps with ugly paint.

Orange churches draped with heavenly blue plastic tarps

Flat roofed condominiums

A U-Haul idles restlessly at an intersection in Illinois.

Union station, four train pews and light from another era.

A cold beer in a hot bar.




E. Bouman, May, 2012

 

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