In that small over-heated compartment
she touched his face tenderly
looked into his eyes, those deep-set dark eyes
that she saw even in sleep
and saw in his smile the promise of love
that she knew that she would forever keep
there in her heart, all through the moments, hours
days, weeks, months, stretching into years
that they might be apart

In that small, icy compartment
she blew on fingers numb and cold
struggling, eyes blurred
finding it difficult to hold the rain-smudged page
from which his name, that one beloved name
leaped out at her to blur her eyes
to fuel her sadness and her inner rage

In that crowded compartment
static amid the autumned trees of green and gold
his stiff fingers struggled to form the words
the all-important signature
from the black ink that sluggishly flowed

In that empty compartment
the headlines barely visible in the dim evening light
the crumpled newspaper lay
proclaiming
“Hostilities have ceased
on this the eleventh moment
of the eleventh hour
of the eleventh day