Satellite

a poem entitled 'Satellite', the first from a short series

a winter without snow
                        spectral light
                        transforms the empty railway platform

from the windbreak of vending machines
                                I watch her walk through the debris of Roma caravans

                                        a man’s coat, a crystal brooch
                                        a face made fragile by the rain

she stops to smile at a boy
                              waving from a playground rocket
                              tiny cosmonaut
        against the mother-ship
        of concrete apartment-blocks

                        beyond them lunar wastes
                                                        for miles only wind

                                                        she stands in the chill of that wide air
                                        her gaze following the train-line
                      towards Wodzislaw Slaski

            while a migrant wind strums the telephone wires
and plastic shopping bags fly about her head like ash

as the train comes
              I watch her place a flower in a cigarette box

              she is the self hidden from herself
in that cold place