High speed rain

The platforms are flooded.
The train windows steam with
commuter breath;
I draw a face.
Someone is talking on their mobile;
his daughter left home last night,
packed a suitcase,
went over to Dean’s.
She's always been independent, he says,
Too f*cking independent if you ask me.
She’s coming over tonight, he says,
so we can
iron out our differences.
I watch a cyclist
curving arcs of rain from under her wheels
as she charts the pavement
by the swollen canal.
Another train passes the other way,
sounding its horn,
making everybody jump.
I jump.
The man on the phone says,
F*cking ‘ell, and carries on.
Streaks of high speed rain claw
their sodden fingers across my window
in diagonal lines.
The sky is a purpling bruise,
whacked by the back of August’s hand.
I watch the cows standing up,
putting up with it all,
the ambulances flashing on the flyover,
and the fields as green as spring.