The crickets are disturbed for a moment
by trains, motorcycles, cars, or airplanes.
Listening is full of these disappointments,
brief as they are. When

a noise aggravates you even trees are still
but that silence doesn’t last.

Imagine thoughts full of children dismayed by
earthquakes or telephones or red light or avarice
around your throat, and stop thinking.

This is the idea of a train. As the sound dies you move,
or let everything else empty since it was
driven and spent first. Some snake

that disappears if you’re not on it
would be an everlasting nightmare now.