Y) booking office

air thick
as blotting paper
swallows thought

there's no clock
the only hands moving
across keys
to unlock cheap journeys

one man drinks coffee and repeats
gleefully how their boss went home
leaving a link in the system down
"And head office said "That's terrible!"
and I said "well..."" The other man
tut tuts, drinks tea, smiles
the woman ploughs on
between taking head ache pills
"It's been getting worse since friday"
and I'm not sure if she means the pain
or the computers

people come in, take a number, give up
and go, and I see their shoulders relax
just a fraction
as if one tooth had been extracted
and there were ten rotten left

they know all the stations' names
reading screens between swivelling chairs
in this stifling place
Scotland and Cornwall
airports and ferries

they stare, amused, without cursing
patient in the face of changed minds
and lost purses, dreaming of home

I leave clutching my tickets
slipped in a brown envelope
the bus goes past
I've been there an hour
but in my bag I've the ingredients
more powerful than unicorn horn
and dragons' oath
for a spell
in another life