Leaving

Working a hole through a jumper,

a finger popped through,

then a cork and bonne nouvelle,

it weren't no chance,

planned it for ages.

Years later,

Gare Du Nord - Ashford - St. Pancras,

looked not as sieges in succession,

just a nice thing, for once,

salient dots on the continuum,

since the French aren't coming,

I was reminded in class once,

it's fine.

And above the water, even,

coming off drugs

I'd take the ferry teens,

leering at my sallow skin,

cheekbones, haunted Toblerone bumps,

six weeks sucking the life out me ---

mixed feelings in this tunnel right now,

something worn out,

tyre scuffs,

damp loo roll strewn bilingual carrier, 

and the layers through which we travel,

so this mode is everything

that seems far in the future,

and so pulled into the voyagers' past.