Keeping Track

            Keeping Track 

Once was whenever I saw train tracks 

laid end to end, finishing somewhere 

down the line beyond the distant horizon,

I wanted to climb aboard those flat-bottomed 

steel rails and keep on walking, never 

a care where I might go. 

At sixteen, even took a chance ride, 

jumping on the first slow moving boxcar 

with sliding door already ajar, 

an easy escape from where I had been 

confined. 

That first taste of freedom 

was indescribable, with just a hint 

of adrenaline rush at whether 

I would be found out, and rousted 

from the safety I had found. 

Clickety clack, clickety clack, 

I let her take me fifty miles before, 

letting caution guide me, 

disembarking back onto the still ground, 

convinced of a faraway future, 

when I would no longer need 

to be keeping track.

©Paul Goldman May 13, 2022

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