Riding the Comet

                                                             (photo by Rodger Kingston)

 Two power cars and a coach—

a machined aluminum tube

varnished against corrosion.

Riding the Comet from Boston

to Providence unsettles me

since this is a ghost train scrapped

when I was only five years old.

A few dry skeletons crumpled

in faded upholstery smelling

of mold and last century’s mice.

As the only living passenger

I huddle in the rear in case

this flimsy speedster crashes.

But ghost trains almost never crash.

And they rarely stop at stations

like Back Bay, which flashes past

in symmetries of concrete platforms.

Then underground to Forest Hills,

slinking along to Readville,

then raging over the marshland,

the Neponset River a flash

of gray. Then past Norfolk without

a pang of conscience. Canton, Sharon,

Foxboro and other suburbs

hardly crease my mental map.

We rip across the state line

and pierce a hole through Pawtucket.

At last I detrain from the dream

with Rhode Island’s snowy tombstone

of a state house hovering nearby.

Panting smuts of diesel exhaust,

the Comet departs in the mist.

I join myself in a café where                                                 

I describe my railroad journey

with respect for the disbelief

self and other have in common.

Did that ghost train actually run?

That gleam of aluminum banded

with two shades of blue enamel

could be seen as winter light

refreshed and refreshing itself

in a corner of our mutual eye.