Christina M. Rau: “Travel Problem 1.”

Train X leaves
the station
12 PM. Track 2. Heading East.
It gains velocity at a rate of
2 mph until it hits top speed:
whatever the engineer feels
will not tear the cars apart.

Train Y leaves
a different station
12 PM. Track 2. Heading West.
Its passengers sleep,
heads smudging windows.

Rain happens.

At what point will
each train
hit the milk truck that has stalled
across the tracks at
Bay Point Junction?

Answer:
The trucker calls the police.
Voicemail picks up.
The police parole and partake
in the parade. Today is Bay Point Day.
No rain has fallen on the marchers,
so the first train is probably
closer than the second.
However, the wind has swept in,
so the sleepy second train
speeds up.
That will have the greatest impact.

Christina M. Rau is the founder of Poets In Nassau, a reading circuit on Long Island, NY. She teaches English at Nassau Community College where she also serves as Editor for The Nassau Review and Coordinator for the Creative Writing Project. Her poetry has appeared on gallery walls in The Ekphrastic Poster Show, on car magnets for The Living Poetry Project, and most recently in the journals Technoculture and Redheaded Stepchild. In her non-writing life, she practices yoga occasionally and line dances on other occasions. Her chapbook, For The Girls, I, is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. Find her links on alifeofwe.blogspot.com