"Station" begins with a simple sentence announcing "we" are on a railway station platform and are about to say goodbye to each other. The train is waiting, ready to depart, and the speaker is already imagining how he might feel when his son is gone. He is aware, in a regretful sense, of all the things he and his son have never said to each other. The implication is that there may be no more time or no other opportunity to say such things.

The boy puts "his black dufflebag" on his shoulder and shifts his weight "from foot to foot," perhaps indicating his discomfort with the prospect of saying goodbye to his father. The son is impatient to be on his way, and he looks not at his father but at the windows of the train. His father imagines him sitting in the train...