A field cannot be empty, only full

of fieldness. A factory near the tracks

next to a field can be empty. A home

is often empty. Sometimes the train

goes so quickly for so long,

it becomes difficult

to think of ever walking again,

the delicacy of that motion

to which the entire body commits itself.

And sometimes the heart turns

into an engine, surging

at the thought of being elsewhere, elated

that, so solid a muscle,

it persists, even through Trenton,

or seeing some old church in Pennsylvania,

the steeple cardboarded

against the dead-computer sky.

I’ve been in a suburb before, though

it’s so long since I was outside of something,

but not so far away as to be elsewhere.