The Northville Review
an online literary journal
Waiting to Derail

J. Bradley

There’s pennies in your smile
fit for train tracks. I press my ear
to your chest, check the time.
The outcome of this is determined
by who we choose to direct:

John Woo demands two trains
barrel toward each other
like a high speed Mexican standoff,
doves flying along each one.

David Mamet never shows the train,
just people mumbling about it coming,
sometimes telling each other to go
fuck themselves.

Michael Bay has the train transform,
punch The Statue of Liberty, Steven Tyler,
with a gas tanker fist.

David Lynch orders the conductor
to huff something; we speak backwards.

About the author

J. Bradley is the Interviews Editor of PANK Magazine, the Falconer of Fiction at NAP, and a contributing writer to the Specter Collective. He lives at iheartfailure.net.