Four years ago and
four shops to the left
of the heavy sunken tracks
was your first souvenir.

The train noise followed
my right ear, as you whistled
through your maple-carved
music maker clasped in one hand,

with the other pulling taut
on an extensive cable linkage
to your favorite red train set,
as you conducted from my shoulders.

We rode steady, clearing crowds
to either side with a shriek of the
smokestack. Always charging forward,
You brought us to Auntie’s house

in record time. The way back
overflowed from sidewalks with
pedestrians weaving into walls
that, with your abrasive siren,

You broke down. Woot! woot!
You emptied a pathway,
eager to find your tracks –
faster rails than my shoulders.

Far ahead of our recent record,
you steamed ahead into those other tracks
three concrete meters deep, covered
in cigarettes, and electrified.

You arrived ahead of the train,
but that maple stick could not
chug-a-chug you back up that wall
nor could it compete with the real siren:

The real warning bell was a cannon
of bright red air ripping through my
hair like a hurricane, peeling off skin,
incapable of clearing a path.

Four years later, Aunt Cheryl moved,
slower than ever, barely crawling past
the fourth shop from the tracks, with no
means to race through the broken path ahead.