NaPM April 05 2016

[Keith]

My train of thought

Three pairs of thin boned legs
hung over the marble monument,
a tribute to the first death on a railway.
“A rocket up the arse” someone joked.

Seed heads swayed like flotsam
sticking to the oil soaked sleepers,
the overgrown sidings wilted in the heat
flattened by ripped seat bikes.

White rocks, so big they were hard to walk on
lined the polish-topped rails,
our pennies had been placed in a row,
sitting back we waited for the train.

That was when I first felt it,
a steel echo, an unstoppable tremor.
Of course now I look back there were signs,
the counting down before I spoke,
the checking of my wardrobe door,
clothes folded, bed sheets with hospital corners.
What child does that?

The ten tonne press hammered the queens face smooth
and sent the coins spinning,
as the tail of the train rattled away
we flocked like seagulls over a fishing trawler.
I couldn’t find my penny and I couldn’t leave
I turned each stone on my knees, bleeding
in the heat, scoured the track for hours,
compelled to keep riding my derailment.

I don’t think I ever
really came out of that tunnel.



Sculpture by Thomas Wightman