Retirement Options for Tube Trains: #3, Isle of Wight

Not on the coast,
but start your journey from the middle;

where pylons stride
through carpets of oilseed rape.

Listen to Robert
(who can make that noise with grass)
talk about his yurt business;

Coleen, in coach 5, on how
she hates waste; and

Jill - her blouse a clamshell in the warm, yellow air -
on Global Warming.

*

Cross the Steam Railway,
the bridge splicing white smoke in two.

Wince at the blung of an iPhone
downloading an email.

Think of the email: squatting there in Jill's inbox
as you charge past wry fields of llamas
and great cubes of wheat
gouged by tractors.

See her fingers going Swipe-to-Unlock as you crest Angel's Copse

and first spy the sea
and its uncompromising waves.