Smiling at Strangers on Trains - Million Dead

It was the strangest thing today

I saw new footprints in abandoned pathways

Beneath forgotten undergrowth something stirring again

You were a single red blood cell but I lost you in the knot of capillaries

But you were bringing me oxygen when I needed it most in the smoke

And you were always as far as Mongolia

As close as my clothes

Your presence pervading

But it still never shows

As close as the answer I never quite know

Or can’t quite remember

Your distance insidious

As soft as a blow

Your shadow is with me wherever I go

It’s on the tip of my tongue but still I never quite know

Or can’t quite remember

I don’t quite remember

The forced proximity of a million different Mike Leigh movies

Makes me long for the fresh air of a familiar face

And not the violence of loneliness

Nor the unease of surrounded seclusion

I keep nearly missing you around corners and in passing trains

And if I’d known that you weren’t so far away

That you were never that far away

I could’ve rode this train smiling