The Beetle Crusher

Railway tracks:
two parallel lines
joining together
in that impossible distance:
the single line
a mathematical mystery.

 Boys crossed the tracks
walking here and there
on Sunday outings,
or cross-country runs.

Nobody ever saw it,
but they all knew it was there,
that unexpected train,
the one that crushed the beetles,
too slow to get off the rails.

 One boy swore
he heard it once,
the Beetle Crusher.

 He said it had
the cobwebbed hoot
and whistling wail
of a ghost train
entering a scary tunnel.