The Victorian Belief That a Train Ride
Could Cause Instant Insanity
Somewhere in Appalachia, a woman
is telling her oldest son not to strike back
at a fugitive father for having abandoned them.
The standard unit of pain is hers to call whatever
she wants since she wears the bruises like the son
wears Goodwill Levis and a t-shirt saying Tramps
Like Us, Baby, We Were Born to Run. The son isn’t
showcasing what he is, in his father’s cast-off t-shirt,
because Springsteen is the last word in Suffering. He
puts it on, the t-shirt, because what changes the way
we breathe is what we believe—though the Victorians
believed train rides could drive you mad. The riders
were rescuing themselves from the insanity of others
just by boarding. Just now, this one knots his leather-
and-scrap-wood tchotchke crucifix around his neck—
the cross is hollow and carries a powder they say
will kill you. I say what kills you isn’t the drug but
the hopelessness puts it there. Saying that, though,
is like floating on the wind through sainted hillsides
where row-house chimneys are censers distributing
God’s breath as coal smoke. The smoke is bruised
gold. It says how, even if there is no God and all
the days from Then to Now have handed us no
reason to hope, we still have a train to catch.
Inspired by an Atlas Obscura item linking Victorian-era train rides and mental illness.
About Roy Bentley
Thank You, Roy.
You are most welcome, C
Exquisite in scope, observation, and, the particular details to make the poem real, Roy, with, as always, Bentley wise word gems:
“what changes the way / we breathe is what we believe”; and
“what kills you isn’t the drug but / the hopelessness puts it there”.
I’d love to hear you read this to a large audience.