Her shapely right leg looks strangely awkward:
it doesn't seem to be attached properly,
misaligned, as it crosses over her left.
The blue shadows on the light-toned platform
also appear, oddly, darker than the sky
- and where's the door to the Ladies, or
Gents?

As she sits on her brown, labelled suitcase
on a small, deserted country station,
the welcome sight of an approaching
old steam train is tantalisingly matched
by the evocative black stocking top,
revealing its enticing presence from
the bold pose of her white, split-skirted dress.

The bright sun also appears misguided
by the sight of all this anticipation,
as it casts variant shadows over
the station's awning and the girl's posture.
And the widening gulf of the train track
running next to her appears somewhat 
exaggerated, as it enlarges
in appreciation to meet her.

But in all this bucolic beauty
of a mind's eye projecting its dreamscape,
who's to say what prompted her to depart.
And why she had to leave a life alone,
where her services were no longer required?

She sits upright and proud, now, in her
white, yellow-banded, averted sun hat,
and lives in a teasing phrase's ellipse
and exclamation, permanently stilled,
waiting to feed the coy fantasy of
an old artist and his keen sightseers,
as they step with her on a romance train
of glide to a future's pure paradise.
 
A place where her right leg is perfect,
and the sun knows where it's meant to be
in a light blue sky radiant with warmth
and desire and far, distant yearning.