Three Poems towards a Fiction
1. In the need of a name I can see him standing on the platform, there. I can see that he has decided not to get onto the train which is expected, one for which he has long had his ticket. I can see him, nameless, there and know, from the look of him, how he has appeared, that he is a man with a wife and child. I know too that he has decided, also, that he will not see them again. And I can see further, through this nameless man. I can see his wife, their child, their apartment, and can sense the murmur of his thinking, of his thinking of her, of them, how he sees them, just too quietly as yet to discern its end. 2. I am tired. I am waiting. I am waiting for a moment in which I am not tired. Can think. I am waiting on the arrival of a train, a ticket for which is in my pocket. My name is printed on it. If I could reach into my pocket and take out the ticket, I could read it there, my name, printed on it. If I could read it, I might be reminded, might be, might think, might be able to. If I could, then, think, if I could, perhaps, my tiredness would cease. If I could, I could then see my way through. Vanessa is at home. She must know when she expects me home, but I know that she’s not waiting for me. She knows it is today, this evening, and that’s enough. She assumes I will arrive at the time I do. Lucia will be in bed by then. I hope she misses me. I hope that she has thought that, that she misses me. That she has thought of me. Even once. Vanessa has, but does not miss me. Not like that. She might. Might yet. I look at my watch in the manner of a man who is looking at his watch while he waits for a train. 3. No sign in the place where stood No word Every movement is a step towards Each and every movement is a further step towards Every movement, every movement from the first movement before Each and every moment Each and every word