Welsh writing in English

Not Adlestrop

Not Adlestrop, no – besides, the name
hardly matters. Nor did I languish: lose strengthlanguish in June heat.
Simply, I stood, too early, on the empty platform,
and the wrong train came in slowly, surprised, stopped.
Directly facing me, from a window,
a very, very pretty girl leaned out.

    When I, all instinct,
stared at her, she, all instinct: basic natural driveinstinct, inclined her head away
as if she’d divine: guessdivined the much married life in me,
or as if she might spot, up platform,
some unlikely familiar: friend or frequent companionfamiliar.

For my part, under the clock, I continued
my scrutiny: close, careful look; penetrating or searching lookscrutiny with unmitigated: out and out; absoluteunmitigated pleasure.
And she knew it, she certainly knew it, and would not
glance at me in the silence of not Adlestrop.

    Only when the train heaved noisily, only
when it jolted, when it slid away, only then,
daring and secure, she smiled back at my smile,
and I, daring and secure, waved back at her waving.
And so it was, all the way down the hurrying platform
as the train gathered atrocious: extremely cruel; wickedatrocious speed
towards Oxfordshire or Gloucestershire.

Adlestrop – Glossary

unusuallyunwontedly

not the least bitno whit

intertextuality: the interrelationship between texts, especially works of literature; the way that similar or related texts influence, reflect, or differ from each other: the intertextuality between two novels with the same setting.
Source: dictionary.com intertextuality