Keep Apart Two Chevrons

Along the etch-a-sketch of a tube map
colour-blind fingers track each line
like Braille. Leaning one hand on the wall,
the other toying with the co-ordinates
as if chatting up the Underground.

Westbound faces Southbound,
repelling each other,
like magnetic platforms,
staring dumbly back and forth,
not breaking eye contact.

Commuters in trainers stand,
like pinstriped Meerkats,
twitching with expectation
at the same sound, looking up
to their temporary deity.

If the screen they stared at
could tell them two things:
They would know that the person
they met last night and left this morning,
was on the opposite platform.

They would know that they are
both physicists meant to tip
the magnets the other way round,
step on to their respective trains,
push their way to the other side

knot themselves together and know that
each time one was on the overground, the other
would be a perfect reflection underneath,
feet on the ceiling, like fingers each side
of a table tracing the same shape.