Meeting himself

He thought he had recognised him, walking ahead

across the flags and the gravel towards the arch.

Walking behind, he thought he would be

as unnoticed as the silent crow.

But when the doors had slammed in his face,

and when the unfamiliar neck-line turned,

it wasn’t meeting someone you knew or had once known;

it was the silent-eyed recognition between strangers.

Each felt urged to grin and then to scowl

and then to lightly smile

but they gazed stone-faced;

they moved to leave the cool affection of the arch

and lightly touched through the knuckles of their hands

and widened the angle of their leaving,

to be swallowed down different passages. Perhaps,

if they met again, they might embrace.

Perhaps.