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DAGNY TAGGART IS WEEPING
I.
The trains coming through are getting shorter
and shorter. It worries me. Unheavy and in a
rush, anxious. They fear unrevenue, intermodal
driver shortages. They pull no freight. They pull engines
pulling engines pulling engines pulling empty
coal hoppers. Pulling tankers without oil. Crossings stop
tolling. Cars roll right through barricades that block
nothing, this invisible, unfounded, undone, founding
industry. Sometimes, the night silence roars through
like a freight train, heavy enough to wake the town.
II.
The night sighs in absence. In winter, no one comes
to shovel the tracks; no need. Steel spikes rust out, lift, disappear
like collectors’ items. Ties and tracks flatten and decay underfoot
like flooded-out worms on morning-wet pavement. At midday,
I stand at the excrossroads and watch ghostdead passengers
press against bicentennial windows, awaiting their destination.
Their passive, dissipating eyes leave watery trails of steam.
America is weeping, sisters and brothers; it worries me.
III.
They press against my window, tear ducts hissing
as their eyes toll red and black crossing lights:
Carnegie and Vanderbilt vote with the betrayed rust
belt line workers now, but still nothing departs the factories.
Telephone relays carry the voices of Mike Gold and John D.
Galt praying, and we listen for trade secrets and
promises. We stay on the line, and we listen to it ring
and ring like hemorrhaging church bells.
America is weeping, brothers and sisters. It worries me.
To hear this poem read aloud with commentary by the author,