Rails

I sit with my back
To the track
Sun peeping
over
The hill like the scalp
Of a lucent
spy
Rising shy over the crest
Of a newspaper with
two
Eyeholes cut in it.
A row of poplars are giant
ears
Of corn and an oak's haemorrhaging
Branches map
a frosty cerebellum.
The fields are sheeted
Like
vellum. The buffet wagon
Advances up the aisle,
laden
With colour and crinkling
Edges. I scuff my
pocket
For change.

The carriage
heels
As we approach Manningtree
And the
woman
Dazzled perhaps
By the bow-legged
silence
Of a pylon, or
By the sudden
flight
Of three geese from
A pond and their
goslinghood
Allows the coffee cup
To
fall
From her rumpled palm
Hot
Steaming like
tundra.

I am baptised.