Caroline Knox is the author of numerous poetry collections, including He Paves the Road with Iron Bars, winner of the Maurice English Poetry Award; Quaker Guns, winner of a 2009 Recommended Reading Award; and To Drink Boiled Snow (2015). She earned a PhD in creative writing from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Born in Boston, Knox lives in Westport, Massachusetts.

Photograph by David Greenfield.

Hear Trains

by Caroline Knox

So sault means “jump,” as in

sauter in France, but not

in New France! In Old France,

the l dropped out. In New,

they kept it: Sault Ste. Marie,

the leap, the rapids. But

in a linguistic roux, Sault

became Soo, reduced. Very

practical, actually, like

semaphores or an aquifer.
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