Platform

The embarrassed backs of houses
Showing us more than we are meant to see
Like girls with their skirts caught up
Defiant only in numbers, blushed by dusk
We stare at them through the flashing window
Until night draws a curtain on their shame
I look across at you who reveal so little
Your eyes like small battlements
From where tears might fall
Your fingers steepled
Elbows buttressed on formica
Your lonely stare giving nothing away
Even after I left the carriage
And stood on the platform
You did not look out
And if you had, what would you have seen?
Just me, vanishing backwards into the distance
Like an exercise in perspective