Engineers, and they make and drive the train,
Design the clacking parts and with them move
Through unlit fields of soy, past pinhead towns,
Into garages where they draw up specs,
To prove that motion is perpetual,
If expertly believed. They know that rods
Connect the wheels. They’ve seen how the harvest moon
In North Dakota polishes empty track,
Their iPods left at home, loaded with funk,
Earth, Wind & Fire, Little Anthony,
And Mantovani’s Permanent Regret.
A can of Sterno for a souvenir,
A pen so fine you cannot see the point--
No layman can—those they carry around
To dim sum hangouts on the frozen plains.
And when they fade, and when they are defrocked,
They live in rathskellers and rumpus rooms,
Where
late at night, baffled by bells and horns,
They learn the trick that makes their whole wash white.
