Bob Lucky

Oneiric Event #2

The blue tiles with scenes of rural life at the train station bar are shaded with grime, chipped and cracked, but the oxen and donkeys look pleased with their heavy loads. The window looking onto the tracks is clouded with the nostalgia trains induce.

setting sun
even electric trains
want to blow off steam

I stop for a beer and a chat with passengers. A man walks into the bar with an Italian accent, kind eyes, thin lips, a grey suit with matching tie, and a small orange suitcase.

half remembered joke
the annoying hum
of fluorescent lights

I find the app that identifies dead authors, down my beer, and go over to say Hello. I read one of your books a long time ago, If on an Autumn Afternoon an Author or something like that. Close enough, he says. I was trying to be clever, I say. I know, he says.

faded train schedule
the distance between a beer
and a warm bed

I recommend the local brew, but he wants the most expensive Port, which really isn’t that expensive in a dive like this, so I order two and feel generous. We talk for a long time about the decline in the quality of station bars and popular cinema. I notice he is starting to fade and ask if he’s feeling well. This happens every time, he says. No more Port for me. If I miss my train, this suitcase will turn into a pumpkin and, trust me, your life will never be the same.

shadows on the tracks
the precision of the door
closing in my face

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About the Author

Bob Lucky is the author most recently of My Thology: Not Always True But Always Truth (Cyberwit, 2019) and the chapbook Conversation Starters in a Language No One Speaks (SurVision Books, 2018), which was a winner of the James Tate Poetry Prize in 2018. Lucky lives in Portugal, where he is working his way through all the regional cheeses and wines.