Woman on the Station Platform

for Anna Kavan

The chill was leaving her body.
All night, wincing through the downpour,
she had watched the rains thin.

Her coat was wind-flapped,
alive with the smell of its wetness.

By dawn the clouds had fallen.
She saw the last stars,
burning,
unaltered,
before each disappeared
in the surrounding brightness.

Appeared in Berkeley Poets Cooperative