El’ Platform, Philadelphia, Midnight
Beneath, the moon is muted by streetlights, row homes caught between phosphoresce & dark. These are not houses. These are slender encasements of asbestos. Deep, dank basements. Memorials of Estonians, their 12 to 12 at the linen factory—hear its whistle half-whistle & then the strange, soft tongues of workers streaming out. Some find barrels belching fire. Some disintegrate into the vast, sooty night. They don’t know its coming: the rock ballast anchors, the steel cast bridge, the passengers waiting to be passengers. They don’t know the track’s hard 90 turn, the car’s neurotic clack, the tunnel into the earth.
Joseph P. Wood's first book of poems I & We, will appear in 2010 by WordTech Communications on the CustomWords imprint. New poems from a second manuscript appear or are forthcoming in Backwards City Review, Copper Nickel, Drunken Boat, Front Porch, Typo, Willows Wept Review, and Zone 3. He's an avid runner when not laid up with some overuse injury, and an avid chowhound when money is around. (tuscaloosarunner@gmail.com)