Train Bridge

Train Bridge
By Lindsay Lamp

Oh lover, you remind me of roadkill

In the small town where I settled down
There were these train tracks 
Bridge smacked on top and wooden
Tradition taught us how to act –
Duck behind the low wall,
      Wait, 
And in the breath before that black
Iron snake bolted through the gap
Like a lightning strike
You burst up quicker, so the wind
Would whip against you with wild cracks
Screams streaming from throats like flags

That’s what I imagined love to be, darling
Electric.
But it’s more like –

When I walked those steel balance beams 
Dividing the grass like a great seam,
Only wrinkle a raccoon carcass 
      Desiccated by time and daylight 
      Black leather skin cracked open in
      Eyelets, white bone staring out
      Fur burgeoning in clumps
      Like how dandelions grow.
I stood over it imagining
The little raccoon pup still plump with milk
Swelling into a black mask bandit with
Thin, pick-pocket fingers

And then it got hit by a train. 

That howling beast never slowed down
Impact not even an afterthought and
Fear whipped through me like a sharp wind
Coming off a train

Oh lover, part of spending a life together
Means dying at the end
And sometimes I look at you 
And you are the future,
Tearing down the track towards me

But more often than that– 
And I wish it weren’t true,
You look more like a racoon.

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Author Biography
Lindsay Lamp (she/her) is an emerging poet and full-time educator nestled in rural Gifu prefecture in Japan. She received her BA in Psychology and a graduate certificate in Positive Psychology. While she makes her living teaching, she finds community and purpose in poetry. Find her by attending Last Book Unburned poetry readings in the Nagoya area, which she hosts monthly.