Tube blues

"Train approaching platform 3 is a Bank train&;#8230;"

my train penetrates the bleak tunnel
it arrives warm&;#8230;

"Mind the doors!"
mind your bloody manners!
I hiss under my breath
as we're pushed and shoved
on board.

John Wayne-driver
orders passengers
to remove their bags and heads
from the "closing doors"
before he seals in the stickiness
of grim, commuting, bitterness

In this worm
we're vertical-Twister players
anticipating the next stop,
with our panoplies of indifference
we share our intimate spaces
with sweaty-morning-breathed strangers.

I escape to Appalachian springs
and summer breezes,
trying to ignore distractions from
polished shoes and sneezes.

The worm wriggles on
"This station is Camden Town!"
more crazed commuters
rush-in and shove-in
tangled passengers
to the point of indigestion.

And then we stop.
The engine switches-off
no word from smug-driver
perhaps his tongue got trapped those "doors".
four - work days - seem - to - pass.

In the stillness of the carriage
human sounds of sighing and kissed teeth
rise
pale fingers gently extricate themselves from
bold poles,
and arms return to their owners
in a moment of collective breasting.

The raucous start-up of its engine
signals the end of our near interaction,
as we relapse into
asphyxiated excitement
the train is moving!

We finally reach my station
I doggy paddle through
past faces that I shall never see again
stale air and I leap
through the flesh-hungry doors
out of the metal belly
and into the old arms of new air
"Mind the Doors!"