An excerpt from

Sympathy for the Couriers
by Peter Richardson

Breakage
Peter Richardson

Whenever I find myself
coasting down train trestles
specifically modified for metal treads or tires,

I always pull a steam whistle
to warn of my juggernaut passage
through a sleepy village or mining camp.

Sometimes my drilling foreman
waves a torch and screeches: "Whoa,
don't shift down now!" as I go chuffing by him

into the middle of a frozen swamp
which would be fine if an angry mob
from a nearby bunkhouse wasn't approaching.

Either that or dream cancels out
with me waking up panting but otherwise
releived a smy half-track with bald front tires

careens off a precipice—its final
ka-boom muffled by ten feet of snow
and the snapping trusses of cottage roofs.