a lifetime of days

Always liked this 1993 collection (as pictured) by Don Paterson - and here's one of my favourites from within:


The Trans-Siberian Express

One day we will make our perfect journey --
the great train smashing through Dundee, Brooklyn
and off into the endless tundra,
the earth flattening out before us.

I follow your continuous arrival,
shedding veil after veil after veil --
the automatic doors wincing away
while you stagger back from the buffet

slopping Laphroaig and decent coffee
until you face me from that long enfilade
of glass, stretched to vanishing point
like facing mirrors, a lifetime of days.

---

Don Paterson (1963 - )

---