Trying To Name What Doesn’t Change

Roselva says the only thing that doesn’t change is train tracks. She’s sure of it. The train changes, or the weeds that grow up spidery by the side, but not the tracks. I’ve watched one for three years, she says, and it doesn’t curve, doesn’t break, doesn’t grow. Peter isn’t sure. He saw an abandoned track near Sabinas, Mexico, and says a track without a train is a changed track. The metal wasn’t shiny anymore. The wood was split and some of the ties were gone. Every Tuesday on Morales Street butchers crack the necks of a hundred hens. The widow in the tilted house spices her soup with cinnamon. Ask her what doesn’t change. Stars explode. The rose curls up as if there is fire in the petals. The cat who knew me is buried under the bush. The train whistle still wails its ancient sound but when it goes away, shrinking back from the walls of the brain, it takes something different with it every time.