Exeter St Davids (sic)
Is there nothing more
depressingly British
than pacing wet stretches
of railway platforms?
Laid grey under long runs
of iron-beamed roofing,
wlith those fret cut fascias
– hundreds of vertical slats,
above us, there, suspended,
‘Up’ and ‘Down’ indicators,
all part of the railway’s
once national language,
which forced the idea of time,
across the country, to be fixed
against the nature of space;
hours regulated, queued by law,
and compartmentalized by class
inside the carriages,
a big difference in leg space,
but all on a standard gauge.