The train made strides on fiery tracks.
Second stop: a melancholy Woodlawn
weeping birches
the sombre organization of spruce.

Low-slung clouds in tune with the withered
purplish brown discolorations of heather and bracken,
flocks of starlings flung themselves into the sky
blacker than grape shot.

In the day's paper I read
of two young Chinese lovers, murdered
carried together from their Belfast apartment.

I wanted to get off and lie down
on the spinning planet
hold close to me the round-faced girl
the lanky boy in his college-logo T-shirt.

Who invents the stories we have to live
up to the final sentence?

The train sliced through the countryside
the murderous narrative -
the yielding open heart.