To a train conductor outside Medicine Hat at four in the morning

Startled from your solitude you wave,

reflexive-

your great iron machine cries out a foriegn breath

carried since Halifax and the prairie grass

sways and dreams of being an ocean

in the moment of your passing.

More people, I am sure, have walked on the moon

have plumbed the depths of the sea and known shipwrecks ,

earth receding either way

than have known this peculiar vastness.

Deer interlope in town, browsing

medians and gas station boulevards

insouciantly

where still, there are no people,

just us hurtling into a punched purple sky and waving

now to coyotes pouncing in mice

amongst wheat stalks and swans

who beat their wings and sing

such an alien song.