yesterday's news

our loss was
circumstantial,
situational -
discarded papers
at the station, all
crumpled up
and muddied
by commuters'
dirty footprints.
it was as if
we missed
the 8.06
into st pancras
five days in a row
and our boss just
let us go
without a warning.
but really, we'd
misread the signs,
instead aligned
that caffeine-stained malaise
from all those days
stuck behind desks
in london grey
as life and truth 
when, in truth, that life
was sucked like smoke
from smiling eyes
to make us unnotice
how lucky we'd been
and how fast our past
had unravelled unseen.
and so, instead, we
merely stood silent -
the living dying dead -
burning our lips on too-large sips 
of too-hot, shit-brown coffee,
wishing for more milk, more sugar
and a fuckload more sleep
while we read yesterday's news
and waited for apologies and trains.