things move around

All the hotels I sleep in
overlook a railway line.
It doesn’t matter what town,

or what dream I’m having:
when the lumbering locomotives roll in,
hauling a howling, retarded,

mournful mile of coal cars,
stencilled “CP Rail”,
bound for Chicago or Montreal,

I turn in my dream and call
your name, Nancy Lynn,
and yours, Esmé.