Below the surface
2010
London tube map: it’s grown
over the years, wriggled to make room
for newcomers but old-line names –
Ealing Broadway, Finchley Central,
Notting Hill Gate – recall a time
when trains were red, tickets checked,
when headless torsos dared to bare
their bras and corsets up and down
the escalators, when carriages smelled
of sweat, smoke and warm seats.
Tokyo tube map: information
saturation with English sub-titles.
Eight million bodies in rapid transit,
too polite to pass on by: with bows
and smiles they indicate the way.
Aboard they stay masked, plugged in,
perfectly groomed. No eye contact,
no raised voices, no chewing, no litter.
No penetrating the gloss of civilisation
kissed by the rising sun.
Moscow tube map: brown circle
dissected by arachnid arms
labelled in a strange familiar script,
each station testament to the hopes
and disappointments of the times –
palatial marble, unyielding granite,
utilitarian iron and glass.
I shrink before blank out-stare eyes,
faces set against another winter.
No-one offers help. No-one asks.
Istanbul tube map: separate lines
with little interchange: can’t go wrong,
at least in the European part of the city,
where old traditions lie buried
beneath a century of modern culture,
women seen unveiled and equal.
I hang on while nimbler feet
nip past and nab the vacant seat.
Yet here, where East meets West,
a man stands and offers his.