The platform, pigeon-grey as all the others at King's Cross – that cathedral of journeys; and Gingham's tables and chairs, a spindly roped-off bistro space, a square retreat for drink and thought, the best form of waiting: rumination in a railway station, watching commuters spill from trains, spread like suds from an upset pail.
Then, seemingly snug in your retreat, a few minutes of commodified rest, 'Spare some change?' an ungod bellows, looms over your seated self: a face to shun not love, though love it you know you should – its yellow teeth in fungoid face, its clothes like a scarecrow's cast-offs and its desperate glittering eyes ...
But depending on mood (or will – sometimes you fumble anyway in your cynic's purse) you give or you don't give. Sometimes, too, you almost grasp the moral of it: how and why the needy turn to you the second you allow your life to stop, take a break in this decision-driven money-riven world, take a hard look at all that's really you.
Your excuse? A cappuccino or a beer, something to help with the never-quite-knowing.
Published in London Visions (bluechrome publishing, Bristol 2004), William Oxley's most recent poetry collection, reviewed on page 22.