Her suitors ranked themselves like chessmen
on the rainy playground.
Like a night-train through a meadow,
she mowed them down,
throwing off sparks
which they caught with outstretched hands,
falling like wheat as she slid electric past.
She had shared with them the shocking story
of her conception on the night-train
down the Pacific coast,
foreplay in the Andean foothills,
nightingale cries and insomniac love
in the hurtle over the desert,
the sky lit up with the infernos of the copper mines.
From their fallen posts her suitors
milked her satin spin and raven’s cruelty
for future memories, to spill their own cries
within her telepathic ghost.
And perhaps she guessed and didn’t mind,
dealing out her latest tale with a croupier’s
sly smile and pelvic vamp.
Of a coming revolution,
whispering across the desert
from the mining towns,
bandoliered messiahs riding
their own night-trains,
telegraph poles falling
like mown down wheat.