No Train For Yesterday

I spend two & a half smiles on strangers,
drink a bottle of casual words
& head down a silent street, accompanied
by muted endeavors of faceless clowns.
It's a tired, malnourished day, strained
over frail dusty bones of hours
& as I run my hand along a minute,
it feels like leather, worn from wear.

You still arise in idle thoughts:
the way you stopped to watch me at
an ambiguous train station up north.
You were the streetlight that blinked on
& off in futile attempt to murder wind
while snow raced horizontal lines
& hurried past large metal doors.

You seemed to revel in movement,
smoothed air with your skin
as I headed on.  Gave shelter
to a misplaced thought & lost another
in muddy puddles behind my temples,
aching now, condensed for spare.
The smell of old liquor & masculinity
still lingers in my nostrils' memory.

You asked for clarity in all I said
out of spite & I couldn't find the words.
Shreds of sentence fragments tasted bitter
& I washed them down with another
glass of wine.  No oaky aftertaste,
it was the same dreaded flavour
of questions pending in-between.
I lost count of glasses & the sight of you.

I watch a train go by at two a.m.
It carries the remainder of an age passed
& as the last threshold falls victim
to time's thirst, a single moment is
folded neatly for scrapbook memories.
I grow up again in every mile
between me and yesterday's train.