text mode CrossConnect previous next

Home
Issue Contents
Contributors
E-mail Us
   h a m i l t o n    r a i l r o a d    s t a t i o n

--- H E R M A N   B E A V E R S


I can't stop thinking about corn,  
tall and defiant as a woman, 
hands on her hips, waiting 
for the old man to come
home and do damage. 
There are grey clouds with lightning
but no rain, no thunder.    
This is a day I could love.  
It's so hot, sin sits closer 
to the ground than prayer.   
The crowd at the baseball field
waits for the game to be called.  

I'm looking for the last one out. The station master ambles under the clock, carrying a trumpet so shiny it could send light bounding off into space. His name is William, but he goes by Gushion. His helmet of grey hair so fierce it's like he's Aonie the Sky God musing on rain.

A single note hangs loud and sweet on the air till the heat closes around it, leaving the sound of souls caught up in a soft rustle of forgetting, bodies leaving what they need behind.

If I wasn't catching this train, I'd be picking corn hulls out of my nails, heading to the back door of the farmhouse to see Almajean before her husband gets home. She'd stare at me for five seconds, say, Get on in here, like she was losing time and had a good mind to go over every inch of my body till she found it. Maybe that explains why I've come to hate the sunlight. the sight of a cornstalk stripped to nothing, shrugging its green husk to the ground, like a dress off of a woman with better things to do. Standing here on the platform, I'm looking down the tracks, warm beer

in my hand; I can see a strand of lightning lashing heaven to the ground.

© crossconnect 1995-2002 |
published in association with the |
university of pennsylvania's kelly writers house |