THE OLD WOMAN ON THE TRAIN
Lines from
The old woman on the train
commuting between London & Leeds
stopped talking abruptly
and spent the last hour doing broidery.
Sitting in front of her
I looked furtively at the woman:
she stitched her last yellow flower
and was now plaiting a bird
with mauve & black wings,
ready to take her in flight.
I wasn’t sure whether she was smiling
or had her face
transformed into mine,
unshaven for two days,
with pincer-eyelashes
waiting to unlach her ornament
and throw it out of the window,
to the wind.
By the time we reached the station,
the bird had died on my lap
and the old woman had disappeared.
Translated by the author