Meg Green’s bed trembles with the weight of passing freight.

From her window sweet chestnut trees rise above the embankment.

Fish-slice leaves, gloss green preen themselves in summer,

concealing from sight the muffled passage of trains.

In winter, when trees leave their detritus

on her neat cut council lawn, she can see;

from the edge of her bed in the dark,

through strong branches fake tanned by orange lights;

filmstrip trains that trail negative framed faces, some seen before.

She gasps a smile at a passing profile.

As the lights of the last passenger train tunnel into the night;

Meg Green stretches her aching back,

slips off her slippers, and curtains the dark.