With the heavy smell of motion sickness and cigarettes
I recall we slogged slowly through Slough and Staines.
Windows open, we wound through Wincanton and Wyle;
I remember the names Ilchester and Ilminster offering confusion
and being told that Iron Pyrites at Sticklepath was a gold illusion.
Leaving Exeter and Oakhampton in our winding wake,
stepping down from Bodmin Moor, nobody wanted a break.
As the sun dipped in the nicotine stained, quarter-light-sky
under the railway bridge we followed signs to the sea.
Down, down into the village as the sun set
and the church clock broke into the six o’clock chime;
and rooks in rookery screamed their evening chatter.
I remember my tiredness falling away, it did not matter;
we had arrived.