Departures from Dnipro

By Matthew Parish

Friday 30 October 2026

The morning after, no one seemed to know

Which trains were leaving, or at what precise time.

The boards displayed the places one could go,

As though the world remained in working order, more or less, and fine.

Some people had been killed here yesterday.

This was the one thing everybody knew.

The officials had remarkably little to say,

And wore the looks of men with better things to do.

There were policemen dressed in black, and those

In camouflage, with automatic guns.

The soldiers stood about in rigid rows,

Regarding everyone as guilty sons.

Their faces had the dull, exhausted air

Of men instructed not to volunteer

A single word beyond a hostile stare,

As though the passengers were what they had to fear.

The coffee shops were shuttered, every one.

No customers, no point in opening up.

The ordinary business of the sun

Went on without the consolation of a cup.

A woman asked which platform she should use.

A man examined tickets for the third time.

Another searched his telephone for news,

And found the same blank nothing as the first time.

The minutes lengthened, then became an hour.

The hour acquired the character of fate.

No one possessed the necessary power

To say if we were early, lost or late.

Across the road, beneath the bus stop roof,

A drunk lay curled, his hangover complete.

Of all the people waiting there for proof

That life continued, he alone looked sweet.

He did not need a train, or information,

Or know which uniforms were in command.

He slept outside the wounded railway station

With one limp, grubby hand upon the land.

And I, who’d come with luggage and a plan,

A ticket and the usual faith in clocks,

Began to envy this unconscious man

Whose world required no timetables or locks.

For death had called here yesterday, and left

Its usual mess of frightened, living men.

The railway carried on, somehow bereft

Of any clear idea of where or when.

And somewhere there were people counting dead,

And somewhere trains were moving through the plain.

While we stood waiting to be told, instead,

Whether we might be allowed to leave by train.

The drunk slept on. He had no cause to care

For all the armed authority nearby.

And morning filled the cold, indifferent air

With that old question no one answers: why?