Nocturne
Haworth Hodgkinson
At midnight the train leaves
the city of a hundred islands
on its ironcast passage
through the ageless motherland,
a trace of blood from the mouth
over lips, chin and throat,
a straight line down the chest
and a tsar's finger round the navel,
rumbling through dim-lit villages
amid unfeatured plains,
edging shatterglass lakes
and cleaving the land,
an incision across the belly
leading to the magical forest
where silent white branches
bend under moonflake dust.
One last look to take it all in,
then I cover your body
with the regulation blanket,
step out of the cabin
and kick up the snow.
Written 2007
Published in Pushing
Out the Boat Issue 7, 2008
(Pushing Out the Boat)
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