The Trains
by Adele Kenny

We felt them first. Fingers pressed to the rails,
a dull rumble filled our hands and hummed into
our arms before the cone of light, the great clatter

of metal against metal. Trestled high, above the
bridge on Grand Avenue, we knew those tracks
went on forever, between trees that lined the ties

like stations of the cross. The hill was forbidden but
holy, thick with clover, ripe with berries in spring.
The year I was nine, an April blizzard swept the

sky and we went to the trains in the dark. The wires
strummed into sparks, the rails were a dazzle of
shadows. Our faces – ghosts of our selves – reflected

in every train car window, lines of breath etched in
passing glass. Above us, chimney smoke hung like
smears of candle grease among the clouds.

We were grubby and poor, but we…