On a train

it’s only when
another tunnel comes
that darkness falls
and her old face
reflects back in
the window pane
- smiles again.

When foreheads meet,
that moment’s when
she integrates
her eyes and ears,
mouth and nose;
blesses back
her misty angel soul.

Slovakia in Winter

‘Buy my perfume – BOSS – boss?’
asks a dapper at the station
- graffiti hits on every wall
(graffiti reaching carriage windows)
and desolate, slate-grey, the journey
out from the city, smoke hard as nails
until the ground rises and fields

heave in view and the river we follow
twinkles and sparkles, turns with our train,
and the mist in the valley
climbs to the hills with a first glimpse of snow
and the far distant mountains flume out a welcome,
tinkle my heartstrings in hopefulness,
amber and russet and black and then go.