A PROSE POEM

The trains chugged slowly through the turnaround, one after another like tiny ants marching to cadence, leaving behind a trail of soot and grit and tangled words. There was no question that the brave young men must go to war; that’s what young men did.  But what of those sweethearts and fathers and mothers who huddled on the platform in mutual grief. They stood in clumps of two and three, in their light coats and shawls, shivering from the cold and fear.  The young men, tightly wrapped in grey-green uniforms of thick wool, held themselves erect.  Emotions rose and strangled in throats, were breathed out into the frigid air, hanging there only half-formed into futile words, a mighty tug between ought and need.  “Sure, you’ll write,” the old dam said, touching the lad’s shoulder as he grasped the platform’s cold rail, then disappeared into the machine’s belly. “He’ll be alright, my darlin’—d’nae cry.”  Gabriel Thanes said, wrapping his arm around the shoulders of his wife as other bodies separated and moved around them.  He kissed her rough red cheeks and tugged her head against his. “He goes a lad to cast about for the man tha’s inside him.”