Arsenic Lobster poetry journal
Issue Fifteen
Winter 2007
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Out There
Jon Boulier

This train is like a desert.
A useless novelty act, populated by
clowns and toothless gunslingers
with smeared mud on the bottom of their brown-cow boots.
The ticket man doesn't care about the numbers
as much as he cares about the swish-swish-swish
of his handheld snakebites

the ones that poison you slowly
through the folds of your wallet,
until you're the opposite of green.

rustling newspapers inside, discarded
paper cups once filled with coffee that tip
and roll, casting in a wide perimeter
the remainder of their contents,
dark like southern skin and
thick with settled milk.

the trees outside lull the rails to sleep
with their soft whispering

a field of blue leather-wrapped seats
swaying with the pounding steel,
a steaming history made electric

with the grinding sound
in the cracks
of the glass.

About Jon Boulier

| Home | Issue Fifteen | Contents | Contributors | Order | 2007 Pushcart Nominees | Archive | Submission | About Us | Contact Us |