Roti Osco by Charlotte Cooper

Rolling north, we pull over the shoulder of the first Alp,
and leave the dim Italian plain receding in the dark.

The moon is out,
slipping, hide and seek, between clouds,
Spreading light along their tattered edges.

The darkness has grown bright.
Inside the train, stacked like goods on a grocery shelf,
the passengers sleep,
Almost all.

I am awake.
And someone else;
In the corridor, a man and woman stand
swaying, at a window.

Like me, they gaze
at all that glory spread across the windy sky.
Back in our narrow berths,
the sheets grow cold.

Later, hours later,
we pull into a small station,
A long sigh of air brakes
and we slide to a stop.

The street light shines on empty doorways
but every house is dark
the snow blows, undisturbed on cobbled streets.
It’s the only stop we’ve seen all night
where people ought to live.

A man gets off.
He walks around a corner
and is gone.
We pull out then. The engine sighs it’s noisy sigh
and sings the name along the tracks;
Roti Osco…Roti Osco…

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Charlotte Cooper is an artist working primarily in encaustic, a medium as fluid and magic making as poetry. She lives a fairly amazing life in Northern California, with a fine husband and a smart dog. All is well.

Photo: Florian van Duyn