Train Song

by Lauren K. Alleyne

Every night the trains whistle
past, their sounds low and sad
as her voice when she tells me
of nights she hugged her lover
—gone, now—to sleep to this
same slow lullaby of movement.

I tell her of my own sadness,
the restless thoughts traveling
back and forth to nowhere,
that will not leave, will not rest,
rock steadily under the weight
of their own urgent cargo.

When our lips touch and slip open
to free our tongues, we close our eyes
and cling to each other, clutching
at the too-short stillness between
the cries of oncoming trains chugging
insistently on through the darkness.