And faster past another frozen river,
the brambles, shrubs, and underbrush of dead
woods and the garbage that was left behind
by runaways and skunks: the plastic bags
and twine, shoes beside forgotten brands
of beer whose cans, so battered by the weather,
have all but disappeared—like the whiteness
of a smoke after it’s cleared. And you’ve been on
this train too long to know the time; you’re lost
between the meter and the desperate rhyme
of clacking tracks. Home is nothing here.
You’re gone and in the going; can’t come back.
Malachi Black is the author of the poetry collection Storm Toward Morning (Copper Canyon, 2014). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Boston Review, Harvard Review, Ploughshares, AGNI, Poetry, and The Southern Review, among other journals, and in several recent and forthcoming anthologies, including Before the Door of God: An Anthology of Devotional Poetry (Yale U.P., 2013), Discoveries: New Writing from The Iowa Review (Iowa Review, 2012), and The Poet’s Quest for God (Eyewear Publishing [U.K.], 2014). The recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, Black is Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of San Diego. For more information, visit www.malachiblack.com. (updated 7/2014)
His AGNI poem “Traveling by Train” was selected by Mark Strand for the Best New Poets 2008.