Julie

Julie isn’t big and Julie isn’t small
middling in her many ways
not noted much at all.
Daily watching London engulfed by quiet hordes
She weaves and dodges bodies
Single minded and absorbed.
Underneath her coat in the corner of her pocket,
Crumpled by a million feels
to check she’s not forgot it,
a single faded photo lies folded, scratched and gritty
wide-eyed shot and muted
while she scans a bulging city.
“Communication skills, of course, absolutely are required
an NVQ at level two
at least for being hired.”
But it’s incommunicado on the daily work commute
where Julie’s logging data
based on oyster men in suits.
Hints of recognition sometimes cause her eye to linger
on the almost unremembered
she still feels beneath her finger
Attention to small detail, the absence of her baggage
At 60 heads a second
Julie’s deep inside the carriage