Richie/183

Dead at thirty.

The RR tank-car is a marvel
of engineering with steel
configured in shapes that
mesh like Legos.

The sides of the car
are steel canvasses
to the artists who leave
imprints, larger than life,
in Comic Sans font,
six feet high.

Richie/183,
is writ large on this car.

Jack Kerouac would have
urged the artist to,
“ride the rails” himself.

But,
the artist is dead,
and how he travelled in life
is how he travels in death:

Riding the rails, vicariously,
and like death, eternally.

TP/2015
(For my nephew Richard/RIP.)