EVERYTHING, YOU NEED FOR A POEM

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Crossing Sofia Field,
we’re wondering aloud who’s left
travelling mementoes -
flip-flops, empty olive cans -
underneath the seat
of this slow and screeching train.

A girl who went barefoot, perhaps,
down the carriage steps,
fingers greasy with oil,
complaining, like my own daughter,
about her "bloody shoes";
or one like your friend who brought
beer and coats to the train
for cold and thirsty hikers.

We’ve slowed to a crawl in time
for kaleidoscope light effects
beyond your violet mountain.
You’re going there, Vitosha,
on the day I’m due to leave,
but for now you’re pointing out
sunset, derelict stations
traces of pathways, sky flares,
willow growing up through a bus stop:
"It’s everything you need -
everything you need for a poem."

You’re right, it seems.
Evening villages, cans, old shoes -
they constitute the scenery
for what I’m hoping will do more:
betokening gratitude, perhaps,
for whatever else is forming
in this shrieking transit and I can’t tell.