The Train from Trieste

The train from Trieste to Belgrade I’m stuck in a corridor on the floor beside the toilet, my ruck sack propping me up, a pool of piss sloshing closer every mile.

Other passengers with voluminous colourful skirts over bulging bellies – so many babies to be born in carriages or station platforms.

My mother with her own womb blossoming on the ship travelling across the oceans or on trains steaming across the African veldt and its scorched ochre earth, Acacia and Baobab trees. On the luggage rack her hat box and trunk with its travel labels – Union Castle Line, SA Railways Port Elizabeth to Johannesburg.

On the train in Yugoslavia it’s dark, darker still as we rattle through tunnels and the women heave from side to side. A man with vodka breath keeps an eye on them, and me, as if I’m one of his harem.

by Annie McCrae