Up
Shirley Majors
John Majors
What's Oskie
I  Walked On
House Near Road
Mark
Upper body

The brakes too late
of a train scream
before his brother's car
-- he sits up in bed.
He hasn't slept well
in a long time,
shaken by faint starlight,
the feeling he has walked
too long in a boy's shoes.
Outside, lean clouds race
across a lean moon.
A car's lights flash
over his head,
across the back wall,
the engine's slow whine a wave,
then gone. He pictures
the lights on the dashboard,
window cracked breeze,
a cigarette butt bouncing
red in the rearview.
In the next room, the baby
stirs. He rises from bed,
leaves his wife to sleep
the sleep of the dead,
impervious to quiet.
He hears too much.
The baby is the same way,
sleeping fitfully,
awakened by distant dogs,
car radio's, wind.
Now the baby stills.
Perhaps he feigns insomnia.
Then crib squeak, and gurgle,
labor of breathe.
He had feared his darkness
against the dark doorway.
He had listened for trains.
He approaches the crib,
looks over, down,
knows nothing
but to offer a finger
to a squirming little hand.
When a faraway train whistle
stings the air, the baby
speaks to him in tongues.