Pandrol Jackson

Along a derelict railroad, abandoned machinery takes
      its last tour of duty toward rust. Another town is stalling.  
Another house smolders with rot while a television rages. 
     Crows patrol banked cinders beside a landfill with a sign:
No Dumping. We were Jews in Austria. No, we spoke German
      in Czechoslovakia—by order of the Alliance, we filed
Into a railroad car and died. No, we were black in Arkansas.
      Here is a filthy contraption, like a grim lawn mower 
With flanged iron wheels, Pandrol Jackson in blue paint 
      on its rotted housing: a rail grinder, used to polish steel 
To brilliance, forgotten here as after the Rapture. And the carcass 
      of a boxcar warps just down the track, groaning with a cargo of bones. 
 

Copyright Credit: T. R. Hummer, "Pandrol Jackson" from Skandalon. Copyright © 2014 by T. R. Hummer.  Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press.
Source: Skandalon (Louisiana State University Press, 2014)