Standing on my Back Porch in a Winter Rainstorm, Not Wanting to Walk to Class, I Listen to the Train Behind My House.

Somewhere in Heaven,

where everything’s liquid,

a trucker, hauling windows, crashes.

The debris showers Newark, DE,

beats my cold hands red,

stings me through my clothes,

strips the trees naked

and offers them dark, wet coats

they can’t refuse.

Dead leaves freckle my driveway.

Squirrels, now scared gray statues,

hide under my back porch.

My cigarette glimmers for three puffs

before it becomes a noodle.

A train rages against the rain

on it’s way to deliver Florida

oranges to somewhere north,

where folks are shivering

in white blankets.


Andrew Graney was born and raised in Wilmington, DE. His work has recently appeared in The Main Street Journal at the University of Delaware, and The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry.