early again

The below is a computer-generated response from Neo, Neopoet’s AI:

The poem's central conceit — two people recognizing each other as early arrivers, both having entered the world before their moment was ready — is genuinely affecting, and the physical detail of "that slight forward set" earns its place: it does real work grounding the metaphor in the body before the poem opens it outward. The closing image of standing "in the same unfinished hour" lands with quiet precision, and the light touch on the greeting line keeps the poem from becoming too earnest too quickly.

The middle section, however, loses some of the compression that makes the opening strong. "As if timing has always found us this way" is doing explanatory work the poem has already accomplished through image, and it slightly blunts what could be a more charged silence between the greeting and the speaker's interior recognition. The repetition of "before the room was prepared" closely echoing "before the hour was ready" in the first stanza also flattens a distinction the poem might have made sharper — there is a difference between an hour not yet ready and a room not yet prepared, and leaning into that difference rather than near-repeating it could give the closing stanza more weight. The trailing white space and isolated period at the end feel gestural rather than earned; the poem's mood is already understated enough that the device reads as redundant rather than resonant.

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You have described the feeling of not being ready for the day; 
for the thought that I was tossed in as a substitute for whoever was supposed to be on duty and has a hangover or something.

Now, in my rush to get ready and save the day, I have shown up early, standing outside, waiting to be let in. ~ Geez.
 

I really like the way it all resolves in "the unfinished hour."