Published in the Nov./Dec. edition of Coffee Press Journal. Rights to J. Donald Coonrod.

Mud trains run across the flat wet
land,and stop at little towns like
Gregory,Stump, Gateway and Lake,where
their engines simmer awhile,then roll on.

What’s missing when they’re gone is
what they couldn’t deliver—Jackie’s
boy, who left home and fell in Baghdad
last summer;a onetime teacher who
passed out driving home; and a mother
who died before her child was born.

They’re out there now, somewhere in the stars,
along with philosophers and
God who would gladly have created
a different world, if they could.

Life goes on—seas roll and destroy
the coast; hurricane’s come;
the just die young—what’s left
is love, mud trains and the moon.