This poem won honorable mention in the 2018 Clinton F. Larson Poetry Contest sponsored by BYU Studies.

I hear the coal train’s organ note in the distance,remember the two pigeonscircling together and pecking the open groundbetween ties near the tracks.They were smoke-purple birds, white-winged.And even if a train by some surprise could pass over themviolently vibrating their walls on either side,they would be safe in the center from every moving part,not just the unearthly noise of torqueing iron axle.These birds probably have learned by nowthat after its spray-painted flanks clunk and clunk and rail away,it’s all just the sound of commuters’ engines againand a slightly stronger morning sun.