I don’t like trains –
People get on who never get off again
They have given me flowerless distances and windows smashed with rain
Offered me stations as big as cathedrals where no one spoke
And no one sang
Yet when I was a child I loved the engines for their smoke.
Once they offered me soldiers
On country platforms looking for someone’s
Obscene lost-luggage bomb and the rat-squeak of military headphones
And when the food and drink was gone only the children spoke
And no one sang
Though it wouldn’t have hurt for someone to sing or crack a bad joke.
Once I tried for love
Of a fumbling sort, awkward and desperate
In the sway and buck between carriages and the silly hurt of all of it
The sort of incident that neither spoke
Of and no one sang
Or scribed a poem about; best passed off to the curious as a joke.
Those who like trains
And they are many, have never heard
The longing in the shunting wheels and are fortunate to be spared
The secret knowledge the carriage spoke
And the brakes sang –
There is nothing human in it. Yet once I loved the engines for their smoke.
