Walking on the Rail-road Tracks

Soul-weary

dodging glass shard
after glass shard,
day after day,
keeping up an akward gait
to stay on the fading rails
and not the hard stones
that have started to bruise
my feet anyway

Until a couple years ago,
trains ran on this rail;
I don't know why they did
or why they don't now

I miss their lonesome whistles
but not their pounding passages:
the tracks are solid iron
every tie carefully nailed to them
bits of iron strewn
here and there
amid the stones

Some lovers of poetry
all but broke their backs
so I could walk
on these rail-road tracks