Topinabee

By Ed Ahern

When my age was barely in double digits
I walked alone on a little used railroad track
through woods and along a lake shore
to the quiet village of Topinabee
I spoke little but looked closely at
the summer somnolent goings on.
Then bought and ate ice cream,
and clambered up the embankment
for the two miles and some return.
I was barely missed or noticed.
What I saw on the tracks, discarded
or abandoned, dead or living,
was never recorded, rarely mentioned.
It was almost nothing. And complete.

Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had about 500 stories and poems published so far, and ten books. Ed works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories where he manages a posse of seven review editors, and as lead editor at Scribes Micro.