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WHChaibun
- Don Socha |
Haibun Selections
Paul T. Conneally, Editor
Loughborough, UK
Chugging
Don Socha
Michigan, USA
Chugging through the night and a white landscape, the train sways side to
side. Its whistle blows and is silent.
Somewhere another passenger murmurs softly.
A beer bottle standing on a plastic tray attached to the seatback slides and is
caught in mid-air before it falls.
Passengers thrust themselves down the swaying isle, car to car, for potato
chips, candy, a hotdog, coffee or beer.
The doors between cars open with a slight crash. They stay open and the next car
can be heard squeaking rhythmically with the train, like the springs of an old
bed.
The voices of children can be heard there.
A young man speaking Arabic with his father bangs plastic figurines together in
mock battle.
Softly, the train slows, gliding silently to a stop in the night.
Snow falls past the lights of the Kalamazoo train depot, trimmed with white.
a group of them
complaining of the cold -
not one ugly face
