Nostalgia

"Through pleasures and palaces" --

Through hotels, and Pullman cars, and steamships . .

Pink and white camellias

floating in a crystal bowl,
The sharp smell of firewood,
The scrape and rustle of a dog stretching himself on a hardwood floor,
And your voice, reading -- reading --

to the slow ticking of an old brass clock . .

"Tickets, please!"

And I watch the man in front of me

Fumbling in fourteen pockets,

While the conductor balances his ticket-punch
Between his fingers.