Red Wheel Still

The train moved on, a blurred rush

of telephone poles and fields.

Then, through a gap, a sudden hush

in the visual, what the moment yields.

A yard, all mud and patchy brown,

a sagging fence, a leaning shed.

And there, a tricycle, upside down,

a single red wheel, slowly turning, dead

slow, in the wind. A child's afternoon

cut short, or forgotten. Then the trees

closed in, like a drawn curtain, too soon.

Just a flash, a glimpse of someone's unease.