Red Star Line
The dead don’t ride — some young man
With frostbitten fingertips will push them out
Onto the rails, where the next train will
Cut them to pieces, fertilizing that black soil
With the blood of her sons.
The dead don’t ride — except the stories
That whisper among the men
As they jolt and sway to the next battle,
And hand around jars of homemade vodka
To take the edge off the chill
And the dull ache in their bellies.
They understand hunger better than the generals know,
And they know what waits at the waystations,
The wood-bound places where no light
Breaks the darkness around the rails.
The dead don’t ride, but they wait
Longer than the living.
The dead don’t ride — they piece themselves together
Beside the rails, and hold their empty bellies
Closed with fingers frozen to crooks.
The dead don’t ride, but the living know
Sooner or later that train will grind out their doom,
Steel wheels scarring the tracks.
And when the general sends them out, more boys
Called to defend the motherland, called
To mark the boundary between the future
And the past, the dead will find them
In the darkness, and warm their torn bellies
With the blood of the lost.
