Nostalgia

"Through pleasures and palaces" — Through hotels, and Pullman cars, and steamships . . .

Pink and white camellias floating in a crystal bowl.

The sharp smell of firewood. The scrape and rustle of a dog stretching himself on a hardwood floor.

And your voice, reading — reading — to the slow ticking of an old brass clock . . .

"Tickets, please!"

And I watch the man in front of me Fumbling in fourteen pockets. While the conductor balances his ticket-punch Between his fingers.