So much steam and shafts
of sooty light. The porters
look like Laurel and Hardy
and I like the train driver’s
leathery smell, the glow
of hot coals, the crowded
platforms. Our mums
and dads are on the move,
escaping wars, seeking
lost weekends, travelling
somewhere sad along
with the dead. When
I blink whole epochs
are shunted off. On
the holiday special
where I once sat
there’s a dazed aged man. He’s
looking lost as landscapes
hurtle past. All those
hills and fields and cows
on stilts. No wonder
his mind is never at rest. Perhaps
an old Punch and Judy Show
still waits, as promised,
at the very next stop?
