Standard (EADGBE)

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Once a week I make the drive

two hours east to check the Austin post office box.

I take the detour through our old neighborhood,

see all the Chevy Impalas in their front yards up on blocks,

and I park in an alley and I read through the postcards

that you continue to send:

where as indirectly as you can you ask what I remember.

I like these torture devices from my old best friend.

Well I'll tell you what I know

like I swore I always would --

I don't think it's gonna do you any good:

I remember the train headed south out of Bangkok down toward the water.

I always get a late start,

when the sun's going down

and the traffic's thinning out

and the glare is hard to take. I wish the

West Texas highway was a Möbius strip --

I could ride it out forever. When I feel my heart break,

I almost swear I hear it happen, it's that clear and that hard.

I come in off the highway and I park in my front yard.

I fall out of the car

like a hostage from a plane,

think of you a while and

start wishing it would rain.

I remember the train headed south out of Bangkok down toward the water.

I come into the house,

put on a pot of coffee,

walk the floors a little while.

I set the postcard on a table with all the others like it,

start sorting through the pile.

I check the pictures and the postmarks

and the captions and the stamps

for signs of any pattern at all.

When I come up empty-handed, the feeling almost overwhelms me.

I let a few of my defenses fall

and I smile a bitter smile -- it's not a pretty thing to see --

I think about a railroad platform back in 1983

and I remember the train headed south out of Bangkok down toward toward

the water