Catherine French

Train Horn Clairvoyance

I need them,
the train horns,

every day. Whether it’s

the low distant groan of slow freight

or right next to me,
blasted through my head,

they pull me up through the gutter water

the thick veneer of human spoil
to a clearing, not a place

but sound that shreds all physical matter,
tearing through body
like god speaking

and I have to remember
we invented them.

Reliably when I’m sickened by life and people,
worn to an outline,
I’ll hear its clairvoyance,

and though I only halfway understand,
I can’t disobey its rage,
its command to defy any and all.

Then the locomotive shakes past
our frozen hallucination
and I’m saved, I’m whole, I’m sane.

---

Catherine French is the author of Side Show, a book of poems, and has published work in journals such as Gettysburg Review, Poet Lore, The Missouri Review and others. She lives and teaches in Sacramento and lives by one of the two rivers in this city.