Seat Reservations

He’s a hulking great slab

of flubbery flab

whose doughy excesses and elbow and knee

spill over his seat and across onto me

so I’m caught in a rib-crushing weighty compression

like a medieval way of extracting confession.

And he’s brought along snacks

in large multipacks

to manfully munch

before he has lunch:

bite size

pork pies,

a cheap and nasty

corned beef pasty,

a tubful of mini rolls suitably dinky,

a large pack of party bites curried and stinky.

He also smells faintly of cheese,

he could do with a squirt of Febreze

Reason enough

to flounce off in a huff

but the train is too full so…

there’s nowhere to go.

And why should I let

the smelly fat get

take over my spot

like the Magic Porridge Pot?

There seems little chance

I could halt the advance.

Would the fat sod

even feel a sharp prod?

Complaints would be futile, I can’t put the boot in,

I’m like a small nation encroached on by Putin.

But I stubbornly cling to my slim half-a-seat,

feeling him wheezing, hearing him eat

and pray I don’t come to no permanent harm

as another spare tyre flows over the arm.