Cauldron Anthology Issue 3: Year 1 Collection Cauldron Anthology Year One Issue FINAL 1.17.18 | Page 30

Ghost Train
Elisabeth Horan

For James Diaz
no words describe
the significance of pain
when another shares
the burden like a chain
around a neck,
a walking stick
cut out of hardwood
to last for all time -
no words can describe
the passion, the heat
the disillusionment
of me and you
on our journey
to the end of time
a ghost train is the
only way we ride.
I’m tired, friend
I’m at the end
which is like a wall
and it’s pulsing - dazzling
a cuttlefish hunting;
unafraid am I
to fall head first
to the ground
my head is not made
solid but padded
with air that’s
the finality - the beauty
of sterile words
you incised with
surgical precision for me
to survive on
once I was to dig under
and live with the worms
forever is here and there -