oar.
Grinding wheels.
Charge, clang, roar.
A big steel mole
Snarls through the gloom.

Ten thousand dentists,
Ten thousand drills
On ten thousand teeth.

Roar, roar,
It’s slowing
How it hates to slow!
Grudging hiss
Of pent and compressed breath.
It even hates to breathe.

Rush.
The engineer
In gloomy cab
Strains his glove
Over throttle.
Pugnacious engineer,
Anxious as the train
To be away.

Drills again
And sway and lurch.
The platform crowd
Has changed.
Hissing grinding,
Destiny thrust it
On its way.

Purpose which
breeds envy to
Such as I.