"What's that, Daddy?" I had said,

pointing through the window in my memory.

"Railway engines on railway lines," he had said

in the early morning Vauxhall mist.

 

His cigarette smoke blended with

the stuffy morning sun,

another dying day begun;

railway lines,

crossing over an instant distance of time.

 

He read my thoughts,

why wouldn't he? 

 

Today Waterloo was different,

those blank hard business faces

soon to arrive.

 

He had said the mist would clear,

implied my growing up

where all grand dreams are lost

in the shadows of our potential past.