There’s No Train Station in My Hometown
This porch looks like shame,
Like trains that have never embarked,
And if we weren’t so vain
It’d be bearable to stay.
Bugs are beaten into
The stripping, layered paint in the beam seams,
The permanent crater in Papa’s swinging chair,
An inertia that keeps us from fleeing past the covered-corn fields.
And Gran says they’re all resting from a life
They never asked to live.
And then comes this town’s anthem:
Nicotine-charred coughs fraternizing
With the deer-antler wind chimes my
Uncle made in seventh grade.
(The same year he caught pet fireflies
And cried when their once-glowing husks
Shriveled and curled like dry leaves in the morn’.)
The chicken wobbles eastward,
His broken neck cocked to the sky,
And my grandmother hacks up a hymn
Saying it’s God’s blessing he’s alive.
Like trains that have never embarked,
And if we weren’t so vain
It’d be bearable to stay.
Bugs are beaten into
The stripping, layered paint in the beam seams,
The permanent crater in Papa’s swinging chair,
An inertia that keeps us from fleeing past the covered-corn fields.
And Gran says they’re all resting from a life
They never asked to live.
And then comes this town’s anthem:
Nicotine-charred coughs fraternizing
With the deer-antler wind chimes my
Uncle made in seventh grade.
(The same year he caught pet fireflies
And cried when their once-glowing husks
Shriveled and curled like dry leaves in the morn’.)
The chicken wobbles eastward,
His broken neck cocked to the sky,
And my grandmother hacks up a hymn
Saying it’s God’s blessing he’s alive.
Spring 2026
Ivy Smith is a writer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania which informs her writing. She hopes, in some small way, to connect with the world and its people through writing and reading. She is the Youth Poet Laureate of Allegheny County and her work has appeared in The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Pulp, Rune, and The Antithesis Review. When she's not writing, she loves to take walks with her dog, Cocoa, and play volleyball.
Art: Pamela Hobart Carter
While We Listen, 2025
An any-side-up, ink, pastel, and acrylic on (cheap) paper
While We Listen, 2025
An any-side-up, ink, pastel, and acrylic on (cheap) paper