No Birds Sing

A listless woman at her doorway
Looks and shrugs and slumps inside.
Indifferent.
The crowded train grinds on.

Her house is brown and smells of smoke,
Just one that makes a row of shacks,
Her feetful children whine and fight,
And kick dead coal along the tracks.

On and grinding on the train
Like a lurching drunkard
[unclear: Sweating soot]
Plunges through the hill.

—E.M.B.

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