Sunday Evening

We are two acquaintances on a train,
Rattling back through darkening twilight suburbs
From a weekend in the country, into town.
The station lights flare past us, and we glance
Furtively at our watches, sit upright
On leather benches in the smoke-dim car
And try to make appropriate conversation.

We come from similar streets in the same city
And have spent this same hiatus of three days
Escaping streets and lives that we have chosen.
Escape by deck chairs sprawled on evening lawns,
By citronella and by visitant moths;
Escape by sand and water in the eyes,
And sea-noise drowned in weekend conversation.

Uneasy, almost, that we meet again,
Impatient for this rattling ride to end,
We still are stricken with a dread of passing
Time, the coming loneliness of travelers
Parting in hollow stations, going home
To silent rooms in too-familiar streets
With unknown footsteps pacing overhead.

For there are things we might have talked about,
And there are signs we might have shared in common.
We look out vainly at the passing stations
As if some lamplit shed or gleaming roof
Might reawake the sign in both of us.
But this is only Rye or Darien,
And whoever we both knew there has moved away.

And I suppose there never will be time
To speak of more than this—the change in weather,
The lateness of the train on Sunday evenings—
Never enough or always too much time.
Life lurches past us like a windowed twilight
Seen from a train that halts at little junctions
Where weekend half-acquaintances say good-by.