painted desert

there is a parallel in the
response my silence
         speaks
           and the bland
words used to maintain
         the civil

failure to ride the rails
keeps you from dangling
off the edge of
           anything

keeps you from
   jumping the train
     heading west and
   fleeing the urgent increase

keeps you from believing the
   systems of tactic in the moment


*this is an older poem from my first chapbook, Idealists on the Funeral Train