The Train

On one hand, harrowed England,

iron, an airfield’s mire,

on the other, fire-

gutted trees, a hand

raking the carriage windows.

Where was my randy white grandsire from?

He left here a century ago

to found his ‘farm,’

and, like a thousand others,

drunkenly seed their archipelago.

Through dirty glass

his landscape fills my face.

Black with despair

he set his flesh on fire,

blackening, a tree of flame.

That’s hell enough for here.

His blood burns through me as this engine races,

my skin sears like a hairshirt with his name.

On the bleak Sunday platform

the guiltless, staring faces

divide like tracks before me as I come.

Like you, grandfather, I cannot change places,

I am half-home.