radio bird

the trains always come in like this now
dead and slow and black
almost identical to how they went out
almost

something happens out there
they just can't keep them alive all the way
the drivers seem okay to all but their closest friends

the lights of houses
with some front projection of text and faces
that inner feel of braking
those fence posts that are laid at an angle
as though time had had some overlay
in their installation

from the hillside that little dot of smoke and steam

the cold light laying it low and full of atmosphere

I kept asking and wouldn't stop
I can't stop questioning everything

but I just really need to know
is this through all the smoke and steam
okay?

he looked and felt things
there were birds out there
that messed with the radio signals
he wanted to touch but couldn't

it woke in a ditch made all of broken radios
it turned its creaky head for a while
like some robot crane
that couldn't take off

it collapsed then back into its long sleep
thinking as it went
that it might once wake somewhere else
where its currency was legal

nothing now
nothing but here's the thing
when she drives away he stands there and some part
of his intestines flops out and it gets wrapped
around one of her wheels and it unrolls
from his torn abdomen wrapping itself
around the wheel and the tracking rods
as she drives down the road stretching out tighter
thinner and translucent and shimmering
it doesn't snap until she turns the corner
with a crack like ice floes cool and blue
as distant gunfire recoiling back into his gut
doubling him over with some sensation
that is rather like but is just not laughter

.