the trains of cunning

The trains of cunning

Two men in a vast field of grain waited for the trains
to meet on a one-track railway line, one a mathematician
had worked out where the train would meet
the other was a reporter skilled in muddying the news.
Of the train drivers, one has a skilled hand used to getting
his way, the other was an upstart backed by western money
and told to call the older man’s bluff.
And there, in the brilliant winter light, they saw the trains
At great speed nearing, the point of no return.
There was a side track where one of the trains could stop
And let the other one through, but would they choose
To be sensible; we shall not know.
I mighty missile struck the track and blew part of it away
The driver of the eastern train was able to stop, but not so
the driver of the western train that ran onto the prairie
that had no cowboys or cattle and exploded.
The mathematician was happy his calculation was right
the reporter wrote an obfuscating article telling readers
 the west had won; the man from the east smiled his
calculations had been spot on.