Meager Offerings

When I think of trains, I think of you. I think of your purple fingernails tapping the window and the tip of your tongue worrying the left side of your mouth. The countryside is slipping past—cows, heather, bails of golden bay, celadon skies, trees shaped like the backs of bent pilgrims, everything verdant—as we glide over the rails.  I locked eyes with you before I sat down and pulled a book from my bag, something by Mann that I couldn’t focus on because I had already been caught in the thick headlights of your gaze.