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Voyage
The train sails through fields, docks in middle-manager cities: Coventry, Milton Keynes,
the track before us a fact of our expansion,
the night inevitable—sick phosphorescence of lights
coming on, of platforms rushing past,
the names of towns illegible with speed,
their tower blocks blown back in a sudden squall.
On the page a man is drowning:
I only have to close the book to forget him.
He’s history. The present is about the train
hurtling past on the opposite track, steering
for where I’ve just been; the flotsam of travel:
the paper cup, the empty miniature,
the folded tabloid. Old news. Salt on my tongue.
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