What I noticed first was the suitcase,
one of those Central European types
with reinforced corners and heavy locks,
a thick handle that would graze the palm
once the fingers had curled round it,
the whole thing bound with fraying string:
a suitcase that was packed to bursting,
and he had about him the look of a man
unsure of his destination.
…………………….We were standing
on the platform at Haycroft station, empty
except for us and two teens entwined
about each other in an intimate embrace,
though they were facing the semaphores
at the platform’s end so you couldn’t tell
if they were kissing.
…………………….He stood motionless,
scanning the station, having just alighted
from the train now snaking into a turn
beyond the sidings, with their garish graffiti
and torn posters that seemed to belong
to a previous century.
…………………….When he spotted me
he frowned, sort of, and I could tell he was
a foreigner, useless in the local tongue,
maybe a drifter—yes, the battered suitcase
suggested as much.
…………………….I would have stopped
to see what he was after, but I was certain
he’d misunderstand, would shrug off
any overture, suspicious, limp off with his
silly luggage, he had a look about him
that made you uneasy, the hunger of one
ready to take advantage.
…………………….And the way he kept
his free hand in his pocket, the way
he stood still and scanned the platform,
as if taking everything in, convinced me
that he wasn’t to be trusted.
…………………….Anyway, the next train
had arrived, the seven-fifteen, ever
punctual—we leapt aboard, I glanced out
the door, but he was gone, the suitcase
gone, the kissing couple gone, the station
suddenly empty, dim, my throat dry.

**

Alex Skovron is the author of seven collections of poetry, a prose novella, The Poet (2005), and a book of short stories, The Man who Took to his Bed (2017). His volume of new and selected poems, Towards the Equator (2014), was shortlisted in the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. His work has been translated into a number of languages, and he has co-authored book-length translations of two Czech poets: Jiří Orten and Vladimír Holan. His most recent book of poetry is Letters from the Periphery (2021). A new collection of short narratives in prose and verse is forthcoming from Puncher & Wattmann. He was awarded the Patrick White Literary Award for achievements in poetry and prose and his lifelong support for writers and writing in Melbourne and beyond.

Another work by Alex Skovron
‘Trigger Logic’
appear in the print version of P76 Issue 9
available for $20 (plus postage and handling)
from Rochford Cottage Bookshop

P76 issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey: On-line Edition. Table of Contents