By Matthew Rice
for Z call nothing beautiful glimpsed from a moving train, because a train is always running through it. — Zosia Kuczynska Beautiful, the old steam train, day-tripping between Larne and Belfast, the benevolent pillar and post of Saturday afternoons, stopping by the local football match where it idles for a few minutes, panting, pure machinery, us in cold weather running among clouds of breath, the pitch a Himalayan summit. A hit-and-hope, a once-in-a-lifetime ball fathoming through blinding white, has us two down, everything coming clear, our pain brief as the steam’s ambient zeppelins, labouring and beautiful.
