Year of Drought & Protests

Tonight the train shuts for another death.
Jumper: third this month,

"a rash of copycats," they say

in this hard year of drought & protests.
Beyond us, persimmon sunset.

Horizon, bright as abalone.

Traffic throb on freeways, mussel dusk.
From the station now slow cars

process. A hundred station-goers, all rerouted,

disperse to homes or cabs or friends.
Deep inside these shadows

some collapse. Absent
synapse—tendon—self.

Unrecoverable hub.
We each hurry on, not looking.

Dark is falling. All our taillights throb.