Girl in the purple jacket.

I was sitting down
in Chichester Station
when this ratty figure
skulked past:
she approached a huddle
of teenage infancy
(her story not so clear).

She enquired of them
their moods.
She told them she'd tried
to check into a hotel.
She walked off.
They laughed.

The train was delayed -
something about
British Murphy's Law,
imperial decay,
or the breaking down
of a previous train
somewhere along the line.

When it came,
I walked in to the
first carriage
and this figure
came in with me
and settled opposite me
with her blue blanket.

She started mumbling
about a cousin.
I asked her whether
she was all right.
Once, twice.

Then we started talking.
She's from west London.
She complains it's not very countrified
any more.
Her father died three years ago -
'recently,' she said.
She came upon this figure
in a roundabout way.

And that's why she's in Chichester.
She's looking for a place to live.
That could be a lie.
She got off at Barnham;
she'd got the wrong train -
only went one stop.

Now she's out there
in the night
alone, ratty, crazy, insensible
but completely human
and ears.

The last thing she told me -
aside from that she won't live near Indian people -
is that her grandfather was a Roman.
As I mulled this over,
I looked at the standing girl
with the purple jacket and gloves
and perfect auburn hair.
I'm not so worried about her, though.