In its closed compartments
the fingers of suicides curl loving
around pens and knives
carving out on paper and skin
the poem of their lives
taking the night train to nowhere
rattling the tracks at 90 miles per hour
their futures unrolling behind them
each agony each cry repetitive
as railroad ties statistically boring
The train compartment is the perfect thing
better than the cancer clinic with
its pale green walls and plastic chairs
old copies of Better Homes and True
the opaque rippled glass showing also green
like the walls like patients chewing their lips
fingers twitching for forbidden cigarettes
better than the $6 motel room with
its two dim lamps and revolvable TV
the large mirror before the flimsy bed
the Gideon Bible the roaches in the bath
the people in these places already dead
their fingers drum the drumroll of their wake
on train compartment windows When they take
their lives it is the right place
this closed anonymous world inside a train
a nothing sort of place For God's sake
get on with it: there's nothing much at stake