You are always-already leaving Jerusalem:
a perpetual leavetaking, looking behind
at the platform, where those who have stayed doff their caps
at the camera’s chimerical colorless eye.
A century later, someone posts it online.
Someone else—their avatar an Israeli flag—
leaves a cynical comment, scoffing at “harmony,”
even though all that’s shown is a locomotive’s departure.
Wikipedia calls this an early example
of the “phantom ride” genre—a type of short film
of the period, created by mounting a camera
on top of an omnibus, streetcar, or train:
“The movement appeared [...] an invisible force.”
The most consequential are frequently thus—
I mean, are unseen. It’s only their avatars
that manifest in the tangible world
(though it’s true that a bullet hurts more than a slogan,
no matter who’s pulling the trigger this time).
The phantom rides on. A specter is haunting
the old and new lands at sixteen frames per second.
I can’t find my ticket... My papers are false...
Let me off here, I’ll walk the rest of the way.
I’d like to get off, please!
“This train makes no stops.”