How We Found Heat In Scotland Poem by Paul Cormier

London - Edinburgh by Britrail

Our berth was cold and damp.
The cabin boy brought us tea
And a basket of heated scones.
We knocked the dim lamp on.

We had arrived some place
To the squeal of airbrakes
And we yawned to part the curtain
To see if overnight night were day.

Newcastle extruded a sooty scent
As we budged blinkered and groggy.
Scotland remained a wettish ascent
As rail rocked us like horse and buggy.

That night from a frozen four poster
With pasty top and bottom sheets
We couldn't drop enough pence coins
Into Edinburgh's shorting heatilator.

But when top floor showerhead shed
Not more of a greet than limp water,
The proprietor, some swank Baroness,
Told us to go down to the jock's hotter

Shower-room where we reveled with bar
Of soap, sculpted our hair in odd shapes,
Gamed the backsplash on slippery soles
In the welter steam, and played jackanapes

In the astounding generosity
And powerful report
Of the Baroness's multiple spigots.
Yet if our play proved too short

And later a gale howled at us with a pour,
Or Scotland lashed out at us with a scold,
This wondrous heat, borrow of a Baroness,
Suggested we might never again be cold.