The Ticket the Train Did Not Carry

Through whistles and metal sheets the train slipped away,
a paper slid out, fine as a breath,
resting in the crystals of night and snow.
The ink, timidly, held names the rush had undone,
the script trembled, a heart folded in two like a map,
speaking of unmarked stops and waiting hands.
The snow didn’t erase it; it made it small and deep,
a child found it, breathed the chill away, and read it slow,
so the ticket, long forgot, began to journey on.