the chugging of the train, iron wheels
sheering ice, squishing vermin
sherbet sparks flying on the rails
the grinding of your teeth is Siberia, Juana
and it’ll lead us to Port Hardy
I was just sixteen and such a poor poet
the maps gleaming beneath the sheets
as porn glints through dreams
cathedral bells tolling in the rain
boggy paths for my boots to sink in
and all the paths and all the railway lines
all the electric cables were a road to nowhere
a vortex and a summons, to me, to love
I’m prepared to sell pencils
calendars of pilgrimage sites
of naked women spreading legs
wide around watermelons
I’ll do whatever it takes
to have seen the last of my family
of the central valleys, of drudgery
gruff men toiling and tilling
and I grabbed my fever, my backpack, canned food
from my mother’s larder
and I spat on the portraits of my forebears
pissed on my father’s tools and I left
but the stations were empty
and I found myself sixteen thousand miles from home
at the age of just sixteen
such a poor poet, and a worse drinker still
and I said to myself as I strode into winter
as one who steps into a morgue
I know my friends are dying far from here
you got on at Sonora, Juana
with the other stragglers hellbent
on never seeing another Chilean
I was just sixteen and such a poor poet
I didn’t know how to get to the bottom of things
the first night we drank together you said
I’ve just cut and run from a shoot
with thrush and a gash to show for it
and crossing Henderson, Death Valley, Sacramento
I tried to look after you, procure ointments
I was drunk for more than a thousand miles
watching you sleep, my cigarettes tracing
passing stations looming up like the dead
for the train never stops and the people expire
on the fogged up windows
and as dusk fell over the mountains
you said, cry, make me wet
with the spit of your tears
at Medford your hair whipped across your face
and I saw you laugh, you said
this engine fault’s a godsend
let’s go to Bear Creek bank to drink
and fuck on the sand
sorry for staining your back
I like you staining me
I’ll remember you better this way
and the screeching of the rails on the snow
as I tried to write at night
writing Juana I’d stop in my tracks
and wank
hollowing out as night flew past the window
Winchester Bay, Waldport and tiny lights
in the distance—farms?—hopeless homes
we drank ourselves to sleep naked on the floor
those mornings of perpetual motion
buffered by the grinding of your teeth
of an embrace in your bunk
waking in the nape of your neck yawning
tell me, Blaise, are we far from La Pintana?
yes, we’re very far from the pyramids
and the petroglyphs, the statues
the hordes of tourist gold
we’re in Oil City now and I’m still in freefall
landscapes untrammelled by presence
storms fattened on Donoso and Arlt
and as for you, Juana, every day
you open the door to my sleeper car
ply me with ham and spirit dregs
half-drunk in pilfered minibar bottles
look, we’re in Tin City already
that there is the Chukchi Sea
would you like to live here?
I’m sure no one would find us
we could start a lettuce patch in the ice
