Trains

We will be drawn, not by defiant gestures (at least not exclusively), but
by quiet voices from the chaos,
mothers who have young to feed,
lovers nicknaming each other,
the cobbler's prayer - Jesus! -
when he strikes his thumb;
as when the carriages of horror
rumbled out from the stations, there were those who thought they heard a medal drop,
and aspired to a sensitivity
which might identify the saint or deity for recording in the pantheon
of lost gods, and who,
helpless in their condition,
have ridden trains uneasily since the news.