Prayer

A train heads west, full up:

Andrew sits by strangers at a window

table. Further back, I rest and so he

chats, twinkles like the sun to

folk who sparkle back. He turns and yells out

‘Daddy!’ every minute, down the aisle, announces

me, my birthday, name, my age, my job, even though

I’m the one supposed to only know my journey’s name

within the secret wrapper of a western face.

Urchin, on a train, has lit up strangers with song

and smile; calls out to his invisible father sitting there

in a rattling carriage – starting to feel warmer -

like a log’s afterglow, like a dozen flames entwined

around a simple prayer to a father from his firstborn son.