Steep is the water tower Painted off-blue to match the sky Can't ignore the train Night walks in the valley silent You could swear the earth just moved Can't ignore the train Dust to be kicked up In the crack-faced idle sinister town Screen door to the rail station Devil in her, she ran alongside the wasted tracks Hem pins darted in her calves Can't ignore the train One spoiled girl with the tidiest apology Somehow wedged inside her throat Can't ignore the train Patience their virtue But I never could abide by that Dungeon life with electric light A clean towel and a basin Mantel figures mind their places And laughs where they belong Through adventure We are not adventuresome Rage to share with a wardrobe mirror In a room so beige and cold Can't ignore the train Window days saw the children Pick their street games on thirty, thirty Thirty afternoons Molly, the boys are starting in that rhyme again Teasing more and more the second daughter How she fell Young locked in some folks' prison Made to dwell Till they're braiding her gray hair Sitting in the wishing chair Sitting in the wishing chair Sitting in the wishing chair