The cost of a lost coin

Three pairs of thin boned legs
hung over the marble monument,
that swung a crumbling tribute
to the first death on a railway.
 
Seed heads swayed like flotsam
sticking to the oil soaked sleepers,
the overgrown sidings wilted in the heat
flattened hawthorns hid our tired bikes.
 
Large white rocks, lined the polish-topped rails,
so big they were hard to walk on.
Our two pence pieces had been placed on the track,
sitting back we waited for the 2:15 to Liverpool.
 
That was when I first felt it,
a steel echo, an unstoppable tremor.
Of course now I look back there were signs,
the counting down before I spoke,
the checking of my wardrobe door,
clothes folded three times each before
I could close the drawer.
 
The ten tonne wheels  
hammered the queens face smooth
and sent the coins spinning,
as the tail of the train rattled away
we flocked like gulls over a fishing trawler.
I couldn’t find my crushed coin
and I couldn’t leave without it.
 
I turned every stone, my knees bleeding
in the heat, scouring the track for hours,
compelled to keep riding my derailment,
long after everyone else had gone.