James McElroy’s most recent poem to appear here was “Advent” (January 2017). 

Last Train
By James McElroy

In the middle of nowhere
A train crashes and its casualties
Are hurriedly removed

From each of the cabins
And littered across a wide
Swathe of pitch-perfect snow.

One passenger
Who survived the impact
Runs over to a young

Couple and checks
For any vital signs.
The man is already

Dead and the woman
Is breathing her last.
Without so much as

A second thought
He scoops up
A handful of snow

And begins to baptize
Both the dead
And the dying

As they lie motionless
On their pure white
Bed of mid-west snow

With vermilion slowly
Seeping down, fading
Into the middle of nowhere.