On the Train

Since Jason offered up some of his poetry a few weeks ago, I thought it was high time I did the same, since poetry is my wheelhouse.

On the Train
On the train from Amsterdam
to Geneva,
there is a woman with a red hatbox.
I am eating a sandwich,
salami and pickle wedged
between thick salty slices of bread.
It is almost dusk. Our passports
have been checked, coffee offered.
The landscape trickles past
like in the View-Masters of my youth.

The car is nearly empty,
but the woman with the hatbox
has declined to place it on the luggage rack.
Instead, she monopolizes
two seats,
perched nervously in one
(legs crossed, skirt smoothed)
while the hatbox sits, latch ajar,
in the other.

Suddenly
the woman looks both ways,
like a child about to cross the street.
I feign interest in the scenery,
and she gingerly lifts the hatbox lid.
There is a muffled cry. A tiny, curled hand
reaches to grasp her finger.
I drop a piece of pickle on my lap.
Outside,
it begins to rain.