44

The steam train is rotten and static, its wheels are no longer visible, and much of the front section is half-buried into a sandy mound of slag. The smoke box sits sealed forever, and the coupler, too, is lost to the sands. I stand staring at the façade on the front of the train, near where the slag begins to rise, waiting as it silently slides into the supernal. The ground itself is pulling it downwards. Running my fingers along the Martian tapestry, I feel the craters of the once-shining black metal scream out for repair. On the mottled steel shell, where parched crimson rivers bubble, the entire exterior looked like a beautiful underwater husk; saprophilous in nature, it begged the question as to whether or not it was stationary or sinking into the titanic, dusty realm beneath. 

Steel Kisses

Steel kisses ginger air.

I look outwards, out towards her burning flame on that early autumn night. Her presence lounges between the rooftops.

Waiting.

When we get outside, it is raining, and the abusive hum of the steelworks is hungry and haunting. Thin dustings of frozen water stick to the skin of the windscreen. Running a long finger across the roof of the car, I draw a line in the wet.

Above us it rears itself. I see a muscular backbone of post-apocalyptic gothic temples where you have to worship. Its culture is slag. Its children are steel. Its worshippers, fire.

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