A narrow-gauge railroad, extra narrow,
Ended near here once. The rails were torn
Out decades ago. What was left was a trail
With charm and scenery but little adventure
Or death anymore. Always possible, though,
Emily Dickinson's gentleman caller,
Omnipresent in these trees, always ready
With an inky, voluminous handkerchief
Should someone, anyone, happen to sneeze.
What a wicked disguise his beauty has been,
Not because he comes to collect, wanted
Or not, but because there was nothing
Graceful about him for all the gothic charm.
Even in the quiet afterlife of this ghost town
Once frenetic with prostitutes and miners,
Bankers, con artists, and newspaper men,
Where he was jauntier, nimbler, muscled,
Now back to being a kind of sinking whisper
In the stream, a bear shadow near a den,
Hardly substantial enough for a fetch,
Hardly worth anthropomorphizing as any
Kind of man, robed in gentle green summer,
He's the very devil hedged about with pain.
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