Again and again and again.
The train whistles and molecules orbit the
dust stirred in its wake.
Subatomic vibrations never forget.

It is exactly 8 o’clock at this point on this plane on this planet.
A man saunters over a bridge, the long
drag of seven minutes ago dangling from his lips.
Blue smoky traces smeared in the creases of his brow,
indigo of his indigenous indemnity.
Marks of marksmen, marks of marked men:
none can tell the difference, there is none anyway.
A man of the factory, homogeny his defense.

Again and again and again.
The well-worn path, the burning ashen lungs.
Men betrayed the old oak tree that once stood here
3 meters and 2 years from this point on this plane on this planet.
It is with disgust that he does the same thing
that all men do
when they have dug up the roots of their homeland and planted pavement.

And the railroad sighs from forever
when the short Chinese man with a flat nasal bridge
pounded a pounding into his brain and heart
and lungs smoky with the dry dust of revolution.
The atoms sing.
Again and again and again.

The ditch below is dark oil over water, seething, shallow.
The marked man does not mark it,
staring emptily, without understanding and naked of privilege.
I told him with my eyes that this could not grow out of the ground
but he who had eyes to see did not see.
Smoke blossoms where branches did.

And the still smoking butt fell from his lips
and might have lit a spark
but that he had already taken a step
to the left.