Train song


Prologue

discarded factories
rusting bus shelters
a single battered car
waits at the barrier

a train is a cocoon:
over time
both inside and outside
change








I
Here is the place
where trees blur the line
between dark brown and azure.
Reflections in the window.
Outside a tiny village station
a single bulb illuminates
a lone kiosk. Silhouette
of a dog in the back yard.

Tracing the outline of what is
                                          (now)

Here
no foothills or factories
block the view:
sky kisses earth
on both cheeks.
Memories buried in the soil:
pearl of great price.
Scribbled notes
left behind between
migrations, thoughts
abandoned, incomplete.








II
February's snow
is beginning to melt
at last, tinted pink
by afternoon dust.
The window of the compartment
grinds open. A profile
reddened and blown by
the chill wind's glassy
smooth tune. Uninhibited
rhythms: chords unbroken.

On these currents
the ghosts arrive,
congregating on the soft
leather seats of the compartment:
the spirits of past travelers.
Discarded snake skins; abandoned
incubators. Suitcases
long since unpacked.
No secrets from the other side:
only testimonies
to journeys completed. A
good track record.

Blink
and they are gone,
imprints left on the seats
quickly swallowed.

Outside empty fields
stand ageless,
stationary as stopped watches.
They have no name
for us: we are fleeting thoughts
caught between leaving and
returning.







III
Glancing down the aisle
a corridor brushed by shadow–


He packed ruthlessly,
no space for sentimentality,
small and light the objective.
But some things always manage
to slip in unnoticed.
That old crumpled ticket
you thought you'd got rid of:
a keyless keyring.

You know how an object
traveling at infinite velocity
occupies every single point
in space and time at once?
That's how they became
for a moment between heartbeats.
Now the train to Anywhere
is also a train to There;
any moment is also
the very next second after Then.








IV
You are the rails
underneath these wheels,
                      underneath
            all this spinning;


       You are the passenger
in the opposite seat, knowing
when to keep quiet and when
                     to make conversation;


You are landscape flashing by,
blurred signs not read, memories
              of places glimpsed
                           through passing glass.







V
Across the valley
the luminescent nighttime flowers
of some sleeping town

he used to have more patience
for how long the trains took;
but tonight he's frustrated
by the slowness, all the
waiting around

since he left
you have become all
he didn't realise he was running from

he snuck in through the back door
but you were sleeping
in a short narrow bed, your feet
sticking out over the end.
he shook your shoulder, whispered
your worn-out name in your ear but
you wouldn't
stir










VI
Frozen in midflight
by the most contested
of pencil lines

erased and redrawn
over and over again

but right now it's here
the train waits:
waiting for the droplet
of bureaucracy to slide
through its battered artery

twice over:

papers checked
in the official manner;
questions asked
of the more suspect cases;
outside a hundred booths
selling cigarettes,
exchanging currency:
the economy of an entire
backwater town.

Not a place
you'd stay for long.












VII
Thoughts come quickly now
         like trains

king's cross russell square sânleani békéscsaba covent garden

       exterior follows interior:
nerves and synapses,
       actions and
              consequences;
if we'd seen in advance
       the boldly coloured lines
would we have chosen
                     any differently?

the final stop is uncertain
              but the ticket is valid
       for all zones

home is where our sudden movements are accepted






VIII
The train snakes round
the bend towards
the final stop.
Clunky wheels clatter,
caked in dust.
The burnt ochre
of exposed metal.
Posters on the wall
in beaming German.

She strains to see
through sun-blinded
windows the first
sight of arrival.
A ciorba of dread,
fascination and weariness
from the journey. Alone
now, the last passenger,
with only the unseen
driver for company.

The backwards force
of braking.
Slower.

We know that when
she steps out onto the platform
she will be brave.


* * *








Epilogue


Stepping off the train,
home, away, all one
arriving and continuing
to arrive
destination always here
and also there.


And you are the next and every other station



* * *