Ashtray Girl

The day I met him railroad tracks emerged
and diverged into separate paths every couple miles.
At the time, the choices were arbitrary,
each one taken with a smile.
I met her several weeks later and heard the train coming.
But the sound wasn't as loud as tattoos underneath
my fingernails.
The ways he played with fire didn't disturb me much
those days.
And the smell of smoke and the sound of metal,
rambling forward at seventy miles per hour
wasn't enough to scare me away.
The night of still water should have
set me turning,
but I thought I loved him still,
even when my hair started burning.
All the nights turned upside down
and Orion danced among us.
Teasing out my heart into a
hollow locket-shaped trust.
So that by the time the train got there,
I didn't even notice.
The shining armour was hung up
behind the bar, and the momentum
was just enough to turn a burned body
to ash.