Palmetto Train

Last week tourists went into space

& took the scenic track.

They learned to operate

the mostly computer-guided rocket

in the event of an emergency.

I wish to deal with such enormity

in the details. Who wouldn’t want

to see our Earth rise from abyss

& oh don’t we look just

a little off-kilter?

The star-flecked Lake Michigan

as seen by an employee in Gary

Works Steel Mill is not

the ultraview effect any of us

were looking for,

on a blue-deep preceded by dunes.

But it’s what we have.

I’m here on the train again, wishing

at Indiana Harbor, Cleveland-Cliffs,

St. Joe’s—all stove-dome furnaces & sweat.

Twice this year—explosions,

big enough to resemble a smaller sun.

In the event of an emergency,

the mill workers wear garments similar

to our Earth’s first space tourists. To look

If ever my father—nineteen, at an extension

of Bethlehem Steel—had the chance

of outer space, he’d go. Where

this train is headed is certain

to be palmetto trees, but only long after my stop.

The hard part is getting off knowing

what more will come after. A father opening

the hatch. A silent fire. A new arrival.