District and Circle

I Tunes from a tin whistle underground Curled up a corridor I’d be walking down To where I knew I was always going to find My watcher on the tiles, cap by his side, His fingers perked, his two eyes eyeing me In an unaccusing look I’d not avoid, Or not just yet, since both were out to see For ourselves. As the music larked and capered I’d trigger and untrigger a hot com Held at the ready, but now my gaze was lowered For was our traffic not in recognition? Accorded passage, I would re-pocket and nod, And he, still eyeing me, would also nod. II Posted, eyes front, along the dreamy ramparts Of escalators ascending and descending To a monotonous slight rocking in the works, We were moved along, upstanding. Elsewhere, underneath, an engine powered, Rumbled, quickened, evened, quieted. The white tiles gleamed. In passages that flowed With draughts from cooler tunnels, I missed the light Of an-overing, long since mysterious day, Parks at lunchtime where the sunners lay On body-heated mown grass regardless, A resurrection scene minutes before The resurrection, habitués Of their garden of delights, of staggered summer. III Another level down, the platform thronged. I re-entered the safety of numbers, A crowd half straggle-ravelled and half strung Like a human chain, the pushy newcomers Jostling and purling underneath the vault, On their marks to be first through the doors, Street—loud, then succumbing to herd-quiet... Had I betrayed or not, myself or him? Always new to me, always familiar, This unrepentant, now repentant turn As I stood waiting, glad of a first tremor, Then caught up in the now or never whelm Of one and all the full length of the train. IV Stepping on to it across the gap, On to the carriage metal, I reached to grab The stubby black roof-wort and take my stand. From planted ball of heel to heel of hand A sweet traction and heavy down-slump stayed me. I was on my way, well girded yet on edge, Spot-rooted, buoyed, aloof, Listening to the dwindling noises off, My back to the unclosed door, the platform empty. And wished it could have lasted, That long between-times pause before the budge And glaze-over. when any forwardness Was unwelcome, and bodies readjusted Blind-sided to themselves and other bodies. V So deeper into it, crowd-swept, strap-hanging, My lofted arm a-swivel like a flail, My father’s glazed face in my own waning And craning... Again the growl Of shutting doors, the jolt and one-off treble Of iron on iron, then a long centrifugal Haulage of speed through every dragging socket. And so by night and by day to be transported Through galleried earth with them, the only relict Of all that I belonged to, hurtled forward, Reflecting in a window mirror-backed By blasted weeping rock-wails. Flicker-lit.