Patrick Toland – Brief Encounter

 

Patrick Toland
Brief Encounter

As I depart, I say I love you
Not because I felt it true

But as all other constituents
Were right; the shuffling of light

Through passing carriages, our walk
Towards the station in the snow.

There was even bathos in how
You held your tearing face

As if it was a bud closing
In the frost and altered gloom.

And such, I left most righteous
And something in me celebrated

All your pain, like fine designs
That hold back hydrogen with balsam.

It was only, later, when I saw
That look of jubilee and fete

In my own consideration that
Something in me fumbled.

There you’d be, eventually dry-eyed
And sunshine melting all the braid.

There you’d be blossoming
In a bar of never changing light.

It took all night to not step
Across the platforms, try

My speech again and see
If I could leave with the right reflection.