GOOD FRIDAY

"I am the voice of the train, not the driver" – David West

Oh, bring me through this, through tar paper rooftops,
branches strained and naked along railroad tracks,
though Spring has come.
Through goldenrod bent to the earth, father-tall weeds hacked at the roots, left drying in heaps,
through rust-stained, weeping concrete. Workers cast off jackets, hold up their biceps
like proud, gleaming fish to the last leakage of sun.
Drums litter the rail yard, painted in vibrant yellow
EMERGENCY.

Last Sunday, a heavy-set Latino girl ran past me
through bleak empty streets of downtown Brooklyn,
beating a palm frond along coursened brick,
counting out a number song to herself, the green in her clenched fist strangely luminous
amidst the grey air we walked through.
I had to remember what day it was.
Now, after work on a Friday, the leaden faces
all lean toward some secret, magnetic pole.
The train pours forward. I wish
for the snapping black of the tunnel,
so that we might be like Him,
rising toward something; a dull humming,
scythes cutting the sleek green grass of our graves.
All this gravel come up,
bone-sharded skull of a king.
All these rails tremble, limbs of electricity.
We are the Body, passing through.