Bellows

Can you blame me?
I've never lived near a railroad.
I hail from a province
where buses devour commuters every day,
where rail tracks protrude on highways
like the bleached ribs of a carrion
of a crippled cow left to die on the road
by the caravan.

I believed for a time it was the same sound
of the rogue pipe beneath the bowl
at the bathroom of this rust-eaten apartment
until I closed the valve myself
and was sure I killed the bellow
and yet I heard it again at six in the morning.

Once while walking at Aglibut
on the eve of a storm
behind the towering trees that grew near the creek
I heard it again and this time
I hypothesized it was the fluttering echo
of oscillating metals from the circus
at the Feb Fair.

But the hypothesis was disproven
for the sound has began to crawl
on my bed into my ears, into my head,
lurking inside my dreams at night
and waking me up again at six in the morning,
looking at the woman beside me,
making sure it wasn't her.

Paranoia only ended one evening
after a long walk at Pili Drive
at its edge of which I found myself sitting
on a concrete barrier
while staring at a ruminating cow
and there around seven
when a tiny dog ran away from its master
behind the shanties beside the tracks
the train from Calamba arrived
and declared the sound that has haunted me for months
before spitting passengers on the platform.