Cometh the hour

“Passengers for Kings Cross Suburban should make their way along Platform 8 to access Platforms 9 - 11”

Consider, at 15.59,

(If you want a definition of

Sheer, blind panic)

The face of the man on Platform Number 8

(Whose duty it is

To dispatch the express to Aberdeen)

Discovering that

He has lost

His whistle.

Regard his lunge

At a passing colleague

To appropriate

What’s called for,

So that bang on the dot

He can do the deed.

Observe that thus

Magically

His call gets answered, distantly,

Red turns to green,

And in an unexpected stillness

The slightest of movements

Becomes an accelerating blur

Of lives, several and unknowable,

Caught in the act

Of heading North.

Congratulate him

(If you will),

Then carry on

To Platform Number 9

To catch a train home,

Euphorically.

January 2003