Poetry Pleases: Waiting In The Station Buffet
Caroline Glyn's poem reflects upon the fact that though people shelter behind identical masks, beneath the surface no two are the same.
The glass doors swing.
The crowds push through in flustered, isolated twos and threes,
Like eggs inside an egg-box, all together, each alone.
The groups pass in and out and in, like little wooden dolls
Mechanically entering their wooden weather-house,
Mechanically leaving, while the other passes in.
The men seem all alike, all mass-produced in useful coats,
The women come and go, one duplicated standard form.
Only one man and woman passes through those swinging doors,
Reflected to infinity in mirrored images.
Like many-centred chocolates, beneath identical masks,
A different person shelters, and there are no two the same.
But I only see the masks, which go and never stay.
The glass doors swing.
