It’s too early on the Jubilee line

and too many stations until mine.

The high voltage jolt of caffeine

from two hours ago

has dissipated like

sunburnt mist.

 

A girl with caramel for skin sits opposite

losing her fight with wakefulness.

Eyes melt, head wavers

Like harvest-ready corn in the gentlest of breezes.

With hair corralled by an Alice Band

she gives herself to the gods of sleep.

 

I’m dozing too by now, 

Subconsciously counting stops

instead of sheep when a savage,

panicking shudder jerks us awake.

The first thing we see

is the depth of each other’s eyes.

 

Her eyes ache to close again

which they do as

a warm, lazy smile crescents her lips.

We have shared a secret,

intimate as long-time friends

becoming one-time lovers.

 

Her breathing settles,

keeping rhythm with the universe;

wave in, wave out.

Later at Bond Street,

she scrums a path to the platform,

the last leg, I guess, of her job-bound journey.

 

An angular, scissor-faced women

with damp bird-nest hair takes the spare seat.

She is all edges, petty stresses, 

fuss and agitation and we do not connect at all.

I start to miss the girl

whose name I will never know.