Keith Althaus




From A Journey

Mist or smoke?—
we’ll never know,
seen from a train
so much goes unfinished,
unexplained. What is that?
and Who lives there?
The boy on the bike
at the crossing gate?
I hesitate to wave back,
to admit the lives
I cannot know, to recognize
myself, the stranger,
“the man waving
from the train window.”