Big Timber Road
Getting on the train to go into Chicago,
She often thought of crossing to the other platform
And getting on the westbound train
And riding it clear to Big Timber Road,
The westernmost station, the end of the line.
Or maybe one day, coming home early
From the city with bags of things
She’d bought her daughters, she’d stay on
Past her stop and let herself be
Carried all the way to Big Timber Road.
She imagined the cars thinning out,
Until she was the only passenger left.
As the train got closer to the station,
The trees would creep in, rustling greenly
Along the windows, so that, when
The train came to a stop, she would
Step off into the woods. She imagined
The tracks kept going, the mossy ties
Crawling with mushrooms, the rails
Splotched with rust. Perhaps
Once upon a time there had been a station
Even farther west than Big Timber Road
But the woods had swallowed it up.
But she never did go. It was always something
She might do. And then she got sick,
And no one trusted her to go the city alone,
And she forgot all about Big Timber Road,
Until the night, dying in hospice,
Her daughters asked was there anything
She needed, not because they believed
They could give it to her, but because
They needed something to say,
And she said, “Big Timber Road.”
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Exactly!