Girl on the Train

I came down the drive tonight

just before the rainstorm

and the lamp was on

and the fan moving thick air through the front room

and you weren’t home.

---

You’d taken the train to the sea

then a steamship across

and were walking Berlin in 1943

and the bikes were ringing under the bombers

(and I was jealous).

---

You’d been whisked up into the war

but there was hope, too

and love letters to a prisoner

and a thin string of light under the iron door

and it was like the lamp tonight

---

Well, I had to step inside

so that you looked up

and I realized I’d broken the spell

and the sparking halt had thrown you off the train

and then the rain started up.

---