Trainspotting in the clinic

We talked about his trains:

HO and N gauge, and even Z

which is two hundred twenty times smaller

than the real Santa Fe he rode as a kid

and is now too small to paint in his withered, shaking hands

that swell on a sunny morning before

the next day of surprise showers.

We talked about the majestic mountains:

he carved them out of stacked, blue Styrofoam blocks,

then melted edges with hot wires to fall in butter avalanches

and covered it with plaster cheesecloth

and brushed hues of brown, grey and green,

and glued sprinkled gravel and grass into

undulating meadows at the base

with a blue trickling waterfall of Magic Water cascading down the side

running into a foaming stream where

he fly-fished as a kid in Colorado.

We talked about the rickety wooden bridge he built across the gorge

that leads into the other cliff face beyond the orchard

and how he was troubleshooting for days to figure out

just why his Chattanooga would derail on exiting the far tunnel —

he took apart the track, cleaned it, rubbed it, re-soldered the connectors —

the switch is jammed, or there must be plaster caught in the ties, he shrugged.

He talked on and on about his old Baltimore & Ohio steam locomotive

whose stack still billows wisps of actual smoke

if you pop off its golden whistle and squeeze down some drops

but whose motor is now too gummed up to churn.

He talked ‘til I stood on the caboose railing next to him, watching the granite cliffside fade back,

the track slinking beneath us under a wake of smoke,

the thundering wheels and the occasional bell,

‘til he leaned forward and shook my hand firmly,

“It’s okay, doctor. I know it’s spread,”

and we talked some more about everything but.

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