for Keith Jacobshagen

Dressed in his church suit, an under
the shadow of his hat, the old man
stood on the wooden depot platform
three feet above the rest of Kansas
while the westbound train chuffed in
and hissed to a stop. He and the agent
and two men, commercial travelers
waiting to go on west, pulled mailbags
out of the steam, then slid out
his daughter’s coffin, canvas over wood,
and set it on a nearby baggage cart.

Not till the train had rolled away
and tooted once as it passed the shacks
at the leading edge of the distance,
and not till the agent had disappeared,
dragging the bags of mail behind,
did the old man pry up the nailed-down lid
with a bar he’d brought in the wagon.

Hat in hand, he took a long look.
He hadn’t seen her in a dozen years.
At nineteen, without his blessing,
she’d gone back east to be an actress,
now and then writing her mother
in a carefree, ne’er-do-well cursive
to say she was happy, living in style. 

A week before, the agent sent word
that there was a telegram waiting,
and the old man and his wife rode to town
to read that their daughter had died
and her remains were on the way home.
Remains, that’s how they put it.

She was wearing a fancy yellow dress
but was no longer young and pretty.
She looked like one of the worn-out dolls
she’d left in her room at the farm
where he would sometimes go to sit.

A bag of woman’s private underthings
had been stuffed between her feet,
and someone had pushed down next to her
an evening bag beaded with pearls.

He opened the purse and found it empty,
so he took a few bills out of his pocket
and folded them in, then snapped it closed
for her mother to find. Then, with the back
of the bar he tapped the lid in place
and went to the station agent.

The two of them lifted the coffin down
and carried it a few yards across
the sunny, dusty floor of Kansas
and loaded it onto the creaking wagon.

Then, clapping his hat on his head
and slapping the plump rump of his mare
with the reins, he started the long haul home
with his rich and famous daughter.