Miniatures

Miniatures

Before the train can run, it needs context.
Hills and flat expanses for you to glue
grass onto, hollows for you to fill with resin,
your water. Glue a roadbed, and then the track.
Decide where the train will go, and who will
take this train. How far along are they
in their journey? Suggest the presence
of the people, a town. You can name this place,
paint it on a sign with a fine brush,
stick the sign post into the green once it has adhered.

Now that people live here, you give them
businesses, trades. The post office.
The bakery. Almond-sized loaves of bread
and a flag and flagpole that you sink into
the land like a birthday candle into cake.

Two deer at the edge of one pond.
You dip a toothpick in white paint
and touch it to their eyes so that they leap
into life. A mailman heading west,
his blue satchel heavy with correspondence.
A woman in a red coat and her boy
approaching the bakery.
What joy she must feel when the train passes.
Her son turns his face to her, grinning,
then turns back to watch the train leave.