Jesus

Sixteen and running

From my father’s fists

I once tried to jump on a moving train

 

It happened on the outskirts

Of evening

Outside Houston

 

And a guy

Who said his name 

Was Jesus 

 

Came out of the cane fields 

And started walking beside me 

Which scared me

 

A little because he looked hungry

Not mean just

Hungry but I’d read my Steinbeck

 

And knew the code of the rails

No man can deny another man

The right to move

 

Which would’ve been fine

If I’d been a man instead

Of a scared boy

 

Who didn’t know

He didn’t know and here was

A real hobo

 

Named Jesus who asked me

Where I was going which was

Nowhere so I said

 

North sounding like I meant it

And asked where he

Was going

 

No perticlar place he said

And shrugged 

and asked

 

Where I was from which was

Somewhere so I pointed

My chin South

 

And said Bout seven mile that way

Because that’s how real hobos

Talk and he looked South

 

And said sadly If I lived that close

I’d go home and I knew

I’d never felt sadness

 

The way a real hobo feels sadness

And then we heard 

A train coming

 

Behind us and we moved over

And waited and started running

And when the freight cars

 

Came by Jesus

Grabbed the ladder on the back

Of a car and swung

 

Himself up and I missed 

And fell

In the gravel and 

 

Lay there

Watching the caboose grow smaller

And smaller in the twilight

 

Michael Simms, Nightjar (Ragged Sky, 2021)