Blackbird ArchiveTwo Trains
Kansas City and St. Louis
are 240 miles apart. A train
leaves Kansas City traveling
at 60 miles an hour; another
leaves St. Louis at the same time,
traveling at 40 miles an hour.
Question: which train will be
farther from St. Louis when
the trains meet? Does it matter
that the woman on the faster
train is married to an archaeologist
who has dug up an old coin?
That he spends his days and nights
in his office studying the girl
on the coin? Or that the woman
could have an overnight bag
at her feet and the lover not?
Answer: when the trains meet,
they will be the same distance
from anywhere. And we’ll never
know if the girl on the coin is
barefoot, her legs dangling off
an old dock, or whether she is wearing
a skirt, or whether the lover on
the train has a suitcase with all of his
belongings under his seat.
