The platform is lonely.
There is no lonelier place.
The suburb sleeps
in the afternoon heat.
Paddocks whisper rape and murder.
Crows circle
the metal railings.
Overhead, wires hum.
A boy died here,
mucking about,
throwing rocks on the tracks.
The train claimed him.
The new express.
I imagine his mother
travelling the next twenty years
in cars and buses.
The nightmare of trains
never stopping,
people staring blankly from the windows.
They don't see
her mouth open
pleading with the passing carriages.
But there's no train passing,
just a gentle breeze
stirring the dry paddocks.
The wire hiss of afternoon.
The soft flapping
of black crow wings.
