STATIONARY

Brisk suits bundle in through the gates:

late and sweaty, armed

with Mail and Times and reaction.

Above them solemn hands clockwise turn;

while digital seconds drop,

counted click by dull click

into a charity rattle of small coin.

Rebounding home from night,

I join a shuffle of summer sneakers,

and the clack of well-heeled shopping expeditions:

our outward mood more leisured.

Signalling offhand delay

a wait of cigarette smoke curls upward,

suffuses shafts of day.

Over tin rhythms of walkmen,

ritual apologies are misheard:

those tannoyed yawn terminal unsurprise.

Some ring-pull’s fizzy snap shares my platform

with the strain of mobile phone tones;

unknown connections made,

where rails narrow to a distant asymptote.

Why not take a single?

Return as someone else.

ii.2001