SHLOSHIM (thirty days)

for my brother

For a month I went nowhere. The locomotive stuck on the track to the end of the world. The wax stationmaster his black cap officious and empty as a lifted hand. The robots who run this place must be smiling and the worms make their own tracks. I had a memory once but it was replaced by crumbs of stumbling music the false notes I sang to you. That horizon has no sun. O brother thirty days and you are in the earth and I shall study time with your sons. The locomotive still and heavy as the moon this month since you are gone.