Dandelion Ticket

Still quite young

I have a map for sunday afternoons

Going nowhere, just the roar of mountains

The whisper of wet tyres leaves a wake

On shining roads with a machine-like grace

The first reluctant drops of rain

Where it rests in my hands

Still cupped to lave and scry

Sets the mirror of the day to trembling

Distant thunder wraps her cloth around my ears

I imagine fierce and blinding

A ragged sky all crumpled

I wonder where those onward trains

Where they leave, where they go

These signals red and green and black and turning

Broken tendrils on the pane

I have a pocket full of earth

To grow a dandelion for my ticket