STATIONS

By Tim Armstrong

   The trains are cancelled to your destination.

You won’t be sped through geographic space,

just the Past. See bright Eurydice’s face

at Finsbury Park. The brick-work of the station

contains snapshots of your dad: he’s still here.

   That wartime waiting-room’s a busy place.

The dead are there: your mum powdering her face;

a jilted lover wipes away a tear

at Tring; autumn leaves accrue stone colours,

and passing Cathedrals fail in their mission

to beat nature and time into submission.

   So many lovers hide behind pillars.

That’s why those stations’ plaintive gothic stairs

groan with gateways to what’s no longer theirs.

#darkpoetsclub