Sick

There's a path I walk, a disused line, with fences either side it turns slowly, then runs straight and enclosed through fields, past houses made remote by intervening wire. A year ago, just here, where the dead bridge crosses, I stood and cried, and heard in the streaming rain the clock's slow sobs of seconds, disposed like skin, slipping. It rained as much today, tried hard to snow, and I walked the path again, under the bridge, to the place where you can watch the trains, feel the vibration in your sodden shoes of a heavy line, meant for steel or stone, but empty, empty, empty