Lucas, a 'Boys on Trains' Rubaiyat

by Pedro

In my first ever story 'The Tourist', a character called Peter is touring the USA indulging his interest in railways and meets a character called Lukas. Recently I made my own tour in the States and, with a sense of déjà vu, met someone called Lucas. The following rubaiyat is a reflection on our meeting. (Click 'The Tourist' for the original story which is hosted elsewhere.)

Lucas

A boyhood interest the same,
In the railroad car you came
Sat opposite to share the ride,
It was foretold I'd meet your name.

Not shy, no wanting face to hide
Along the seat made impish slide
And 'til closed on safety grounds
Too far through window leaning tried.

Delight at all the railroad sounds
Your curiosity knows no bounds
And as you ate your picnic food
Emotion in my heart compounds

Because your table manners crude,
Which really could be said most rude,
Amuse me so that we both smile
As I drink my coffee stewed.

At times the other watch awhile
And find no sign of risk or guile
And times we look and watch the view
So bond with every passing mile.

And then you touch me with your shoe
So footsie I would play with you
But romance is not the game
For you, my friend, are only two.

© copyright pedro October 2018

Talk about this story on our forum

Authors deserve your feedback. It's the only payment they get. If you go to the top of the page you will find the author's name. Click that and you can email the author easily.* Please take a few moments, if you liked the story, to say so.

[For those who use webmail, or whose regular email client opens when they want to use webmail instead: Please right click the author's name. A menu will open in which you can copy the email address (it goes directly to your clipboard without having the courtesy of mentioning that to you) to paste into your webmail system (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo etc). Each browser is subtly different, each Webmail system is different, or we'd give fuller instructions here. We trust you to know how to use your own system. Note: If the email address pastes or arrives with %40 in the middle, replace that weird set of characters with an @ sign.]

* Some browsers may require a right click instead