09 May 2008

Like A Train

I think I would like to take a train.
The motion appeals. I start Here and I end up There. I will wear a skirt - a cotton/rayon blend, and it will be full. Full enough to tuck up my feet and cross my legs underneath so that I appear a footless thinking pyramid to anyone looking. But no one is. Out the window the gravelly roadside passes - Milkweed, Thistle, Queen Anne's Lace. Count the poles. The green will increase as the city is left further behind and the light fades and the green darkens and the trees grow and the ducks sit and the green thickens while the water ripples and the golfers golf and the train makes its glorious sound. The coffee is served in styrofoam. It is bitter and thin and delicious. There is that light above. It is spherical and moves on its axis. I rotate it with my thumb until it points directly at my long, long, paperback novel. Thick binding, well thumbed. The page edges feel like velvet as I turn and read again the tiny print while the strangers around me snore and snooze. When my own head nods, I can bend into the seat, for I am still young and small. My jacket is my pillow. The seat back holds me spooned and my toes press, just slightly, against the armrest. My hair is freshly washed. My sweater is blue. The rhythmic ka-chunk of the rails is directly in my ear and it rocks me to sleep like a trusting happy wee 'un. Here I am, perfectly small and still, yet moving. Moving steadily to somewhere...Else.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love it - the train is such a wonderful, romantic almost, way to travel.
A beautiful accurate description

Miss Scarlett said...

Did you write this?
I've been feeling an urge to ride a train lately...this captures the envelopment of travel by rail perfectly.