​In the action of dissembling the self
Allowing the crowded train
To egress its shopping trolleys
I step out
Around
And sink sharply
Into the crevice
Between carriage and platform:
 
Dazed
Momentarily in Elysian Fields
Until several hands lift me up
As swiftly as I had descended.
I feel like a shaft of light.
‘Are you alight?’
‘Are you sure’?
‘Where are you going?’
 
I thank this excess of Tennessee gentlemen
For their communal kindness
And one in particular
A swarthy dark man
The bearded outsider
Whose broad smile
Connects with my soft voiced words.
Though bruised and shaken
My well being is restored:
In that fraction of decay
I am saved
By the kindness of strangers.
 

Gar Jones:  June 2012

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