A Train Station in the Middle of August
I try to write every day, note
it all down; this history, even
the most mundane things like this:
sitting cross-legged in
the pummeling heat on the cigarette-
speckled train station floor watching
the carriages susurrating by
like flocks of steel-feathered birds.
You might think this ordinary, boring
maybe and yet, when you pay attention
there is a whiff of pomegranate
when the train doors open
from some luscious orchard in Teheran,
perhaps, or the Greek coastal tangerine
splash of a woman’s lips, a frayed leather
suitcase that has traveled the continents.
A flamingo pink dress, Indian azaleas,
someone carrying a late summer
memory from a beach in Cairo, wet dog
fur shaggy and brined from the Northern
sea. A boy reverently carries a large cone
of ice cream like a rare, exotic flower;
the pastel pistachio green of San Joaquin’s Valley.
I stretch my legs on the dirty floor
and when the old lady with the crocodile handbag
passes me by with her ambergris perfume,
for a moment I could’ve sworn it was sea salt
drifting on the breeze.
#vss365 #pummel