There's a man with a dog

Inverted collie (black

Where white belongs)

Sometimes I see him and

Seeing myself I turn away letting it be

... This symphony of wrongs

If I sit here on the pier

Long enough dangling feet

Over worn woody edges

He will come and if I look

He will look back seeing himself in me

(Long ago on an aeroplane

Later a train a crowded street

I caught brief glimpses

Of other he may be versions

An everlasting repartee-

This one persists however

Making the merely ethereal

Appear like real

He brings you to me every

Random meet)

It is for this I turn away:

The odd connection that defies

An explanation other than

You're two places at once

Morphing into strangers smirking

Entering my field of living... in conceit

Even on the bloody pier

Minding my own business

You appear

And this stranger

Asking for permission to approach

(Never knowing you've invaded him)

Partakes through you

My incongruity