Quantum Entanglement

They had the same print

In their living rooms, Lowry:

Coming Home from the Mill, 1928.

And whenever they glanced

At this lost world,

They felt the familiarity 

Of that other place 

Which was also home,

Suffusing them with a sense

Of being in two places at once,

Unsure where each began

And the other ended. 

She said they were the couple

On the bottom right, moving away

From the patchy crowd

With its comedy hats and boots, 

Solo dances, simple mimes, 

And pavement melodramas. 

All gone, like the factories 

The coloured wagon and 

The open doors of terraced houses.

Once more his eye is drawn

To the couple heading out of

The frame; arms linked, in step,

And he wonders if she still

Feels this ghostly closeness;

The nearest they come to touching now.