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Full Carriages Trundle On
I don't have a return ticket
not sure if this train
is coming from somewhere or going onward.
In the next seat a 'mick' relative,
we converse in a grunting verse.
Rough hands caked with unspoken words
indicate long pauses.
On the move trying to recall
something familiar, a town, a stretch
of passing scenery. A once fractured memory,
Some kid is beating a tin toy drum
I think it is me, his short pants are dark blue,
they are too tight;
he is going to the seaside one day.
The child is annoying.
A journey battles on.
it whistles through the bygone:
will someone meet us in loco parentis?
I am an outgrown poet full of the Irish,
I am a jigsaw piece
for the numbed seekers of unfilled holes.
This is a video game,
this is a play station
with play passengers
getting on and leaving.
Bareboned is the bodkin that grooves
a map far from anywhere.
Passengers stare out of my window
I begin to count the eyes.
I have much time to ponder,
to wonder if this rattling line
has an end
or perhaps has been pulled up
long ago
by ice Mammoths?
Copyright ©
Eric Ashford
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