At Each Stop

The train did not move all at once.
It stopped—again and again.

He remembered the towns.

McKenzie.
Camden.
Waverly.
Nashville.

He remembered the train stopping again and again—
ten, maybe twelve times along the way.

And at each town,
more children boarded—

more crying.

And after Cookeville—
mountains.

He felt the train slow,
struggle.

And the dark tunnels—

The smoke had nowhere to go.
It thickened,
pressing back into the train
through the open windows.

His eyes stung.

He coughed.

And beside him—
Allen

–Gathering the fragments, one memory at a time…