There is a train leaving San Diego
And one leaving Norfolk
On the same line of continuous track.
They are traveling at constant speed
And do not stop to refuel.
There are no delays, their conductors
Pushing all distractions out of
Their path, their engineers feverish
To keep the mechanical effects in order,
To keep the pitch of steam or diesel – it
Does not matter which – at full shriek.

You know
Word problems like this reveal
Their solution in some part
Of the verbiage hidden within idle details.
Never be too quick to write down
The particulars.  Never focus
On the loudest numbers.  Look instead
For the willed outcome, the question
That having the specifics muddles, leaving it
To seem just some poor side show
To the elegant mathematics, the assumed logic.

Train A and train B
Will meet head-on in St. Louis.
St. Louis.  Gateway to the West.
Good brewing town.  Home of
The USAPL 2008 Raw Powerlifting Nationals.
A city with a marvelous zoo.

The question is:  how fast is each
Train, independently, going.  But that
Is not the real question.  It is
Not the question at all.  You know
You cannot stop this, you cannot
Alter this senseless hurtling,
This near sexual rut of rushing
On time and on queue
To the nation’s center, the shadow
Of the Arch, the tears of the Mississippi.

Those poor, threadbare, 
Anonymous passengers!  In the last
Half seconds as from train A
And train B they recognize each other,
Will they solve this word problem?
Their mouths agape and their pencils
Cluttered with calculations of speed and acceleration,
Will they get out of this puzzle before its end?

Will you, the frightful owner of their question, 
Have any answer?  Will you have the science?
Will you know the mathematics underlying 
Their gambled lives at this moment?  Will you care?

Ken Poyner’s four collections of brief fictions and four collections of speculative poetry can be found at most online booksellers.  He spent 33 years in information system management, is married to a world record holding female power lifter, and has a family of several cats and betta fish.  Individual works have appeared in “Café Irreal”, “Analog”, “Danse Macabre”, “The Cincinnati Review”, and several hundred other places. www.kpoyner.com