In a Time of Trains and Terminals

Milton Jordan

September 8, 2024

Our brother still in Europe and ration stamps

still precious, we traveled the web of rails 

linking the Bayou City to nearby 

and distant destinations, waiting with crowds  

on church pew seating under high vaulted 

ceilings to hear our train called and walk down

a short ramp to the wide hallway running 

beneath the tracks to numbered stairways 

bringing us and our fellow travelers

back up into the hot iron odor 

of coal fired locomotives belching steam.

Mother held tightly to Sarah’s hand

while I, reluctant, carried the canvas bag 

she had packed with our sandwich supper

knowing we’d ignore the chimed calls to dinner,

aware how many brought sack suppers from home. 

That great cathedral station disappeared,

repurposed for a ballpark’s narthex,

the church pews and chalkboard timetables,

ticket windows and four-faced hanging clock

displayed now in a small side room museum

featuring artifacts from trains and terminals. 

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown, Texas. He co-edited the first Texas Poetry Assignment anthology, Lone Star Poetry, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022.