Photograph
When we were sixty-five and sixty,
we spent our anniversary
taking pictures of the past,
driving down dirt roads with a church
at every end: Free Will Baptist,
Missionary, Piney Grove.
We worked for the railroad when we met
and wanted now to photograph Engine 4501
as it puffed around the mountain.
We looked till dark the night before
to pick the perfect spot and found it
on Summer House Hollow Road,
where a red-trimmed house was guarded
by a pair of lions, a pair of trees.
Next door was a no-name church
without much paint, but it had shape.
The camera would show both train
and church, and we set up across
the tracks that foggy morning to wait.
A chicken crossed the road in silhouette;
a boy in a Batman cape ran from a yard
of zinnias, kudzu, tobacco, dogs.
Sun was kind to the church, and finally
we heard the whistle of a Diesel.
The steam engine couldn't make the grade.