ON A MOVING TRAIN

Mr. Peanut blows
on his monocle & buffs
it with a silk kerchief
which, folding like a road
map of years past, he tucks
back inside his breast
pocket. The night rumbles by
unknown landscapes,
           unnamed towns—
what passes for scenery.

A handwritten note
flutters from his stovepipe hat
like a butterfly—
well, maybe a moth—lighting
on his evening glove. A house
divided against
itself, he reads, cannot stand
itself. The monocle
drops from his eye, shattering
at his two-tone shoes. Why, he’s
Abraham Lincoln,
president of all fucking
America, not
some nutty corporate shill, though

these things often overlap.