and watched the light of a train
shrink from the woods and crossing. It became
absolute: at that last second, just a white dot
on the cab of the stalled truck in which
his daughter, foot off the clutch, fought gears.
The milk of field corn everywhere.
He fell back into the brittle stalks.
In the night an acetylene torch sputtered
silencing the cicadas up in the cottonwoods.
The red caboose had mowed down corn,
stopping within ten feet of him.
Two men in overalls with a lantern
stepped into the field.
They were from Mars. They opened their mouths,
speaking in the one tongue of the blasted
cattle cars, the cries
of the dying animals strewn out behind them.
---Norman Dubie
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