I Miss

Jesse Finn, Poem

I miss the nights of a small town.

The trains, iron wyrms winding through town,

Rolling on in thunderous rhythm,

A lullaby louder and a hundred times

More calming than lapping ocean waves.

On humid summer nights, the fairgrounds came alive

As the wild folk proved their superiority in drag races,

Demolition derbies, engines roaring as lions,

Onlookers whooping and hallooing in raucous abandon

borne from years of experience:

Summer is already fading.

With the darker months, there was quiet.

Fall and Winter, all was still, the skies clear and dark,

and crisp and full to bursting with starlight

A car would backfire a mile down the road,

The sound clear as the church bells calling Sunday mass.

But in the city, real and proper, such still nights are anomalous,

Confusing those who never knew anything but the constant hum;

Cars roaring by from dusk to dawn, late-night revelers

In the street and the apartment next door.

And not a star to be seen.

I miss the nights of a small town,

But on occasion, the world takes pity on me,

Gifts me a silent night,

And in the distance, a train whistle blows,

To sing me to sleep.

Jesse Finn grew up on the frozen shores of Lake Superior before packing his life into boxes and moving to the Pacific Northwest. In between reading the next book in a very long list and staring out windows, he sits in the dark night after night and writes. This is his first publication.