Strangers

There in the crowded rumble of the central line we stand. Your hair, close shorn and dyed bright. I catch myself trying to recognise you.

You don’t clock me, most people don’t, but like a brush of cool air in the tunnel heat the sight of you eases me.

I see successive pale waves lap at your wrist as you hold the handrail. How could you be a stranger to me, when

you look so like every face of my youth.