Remember how we met&;#063;

FOREWORD: This is my first attempt at "serious" poetry, so
constructive criticism
gratefully received (verbal abuse not quite so welcome!).
-----------------------------------------------

When early glimmering rays
declared dawn truly open
and I flung curtains wide,
could I have known
how our destinies would entwine?

Ironic then, that we so regularly
trace the same working route,
to inner-city,
from suburban
railway station.

Yet only as I free-wheel
through my day's vacation,
will we finally become
informal.

But as yet you remain
an absent thought: a stranger,
as I slip into familiar trousers
and thick snug pullover,
and set out into winter
crispness.

I track along the boating lake,
where geese skate in confusion
upon Jack Frost's installation
of overnight January glazing,

Then pick my way
towards the railway arch,
where underneath, another day,
a different me might stand,
with briefcase
in hand.

At brick crest I delay
with steam-engine breath,
to gaze along infinite iron rails and wait,
still oblivious to our impending
unscheduled encounter.

As winter sun thaws icy fingers,
I hoist my weight upon the wall
and dangle legs overboard.
I am briefly twelve
once more.

Atop the world I see a glint
of approaching distant locomotive,
that today will carry suits
from platform below,
but not this absentee.

I look upon them
in silent cockerel crow,
bunched at platform edge,
like runners that await
a pistol start.

Yet, in that faceless sea,
one upturned gaze holds mine,
a bond immortal formed
with a solitary
smiling angel.

I feel the earth resound
beneath thundering steel
and pounding heart,
and know we must meet
or she be forever lost.

Yet in my distracted scrambling,
I find no sure footing
and plummet,
confounded by
winter's ice treachery,

Caught by unforgiving,
rigid earth I slump,
all shattered limbs
and glimpse as smile turns sour,
instead, adorned with fear.

And then I know
I am cruel fate's victim.
My destiny lies not with her,
but you instead:

The all-devouring eight twenty-nine,
our bodies inseparably entwined,
and I cannot imagine how
anyone could ever
separate us.