Bus Ride
Jeff Walt
Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest 2013 (view all the winners)
Honorable Mention, Poetry
Clanking through July heat and rush hour traffic
on a crowded bus, wanting to be home already, maybe
sitting on the back porch steps sipping a glass of wine, stars
like holes gouged in a tin can—a brighter, flickering
universe on the other side, forgetting the day I gave away
for minimum wage. Not sweating in this oven-on-wheels,
herded along with singing cell phones, moaning kids,
bitching business men, shoved against strangers, like now,
Mr. Mechanic standing so close to my seat we could be lovers.
But I don't want to fantasize, not today; don't want to think
how the stench of gasoline he reeks is what I'd wait for
each evening, wanting his rough hands that gripped
a winch all day, the sharp calluses tenderly scraping
my skin, the oil-stained lines of his palms pressed against
my back. Now the bus jerks to a stop, the driver yelling,
"Get a life!" at cars. Grunge Girl beside me—hair like fire,
Army boots, a snake tattoo slithering up her neck—singing
along with the screeching heavy metal song screaming through her
head-set: Where do we go now, Where do we go now, where
do we go? As if we knew, as if the universe might hear and yell
the answer back. Today I don't want honking cars, the grind
of guitars, perfumes that choke my throat, a stranger's armpit
swaying above my head; don't want my usual wonderings.
Their sadness—whatever it's about—is mine too, but today
I don't want to care. Right now, I want a cool square of quiet
to stand in, my own calm breathing. I want to put the brakes on
my longing, fill my tub. Soak in my final stop. The world's noise
and people who need me wrung from my body
like water squeezed out of a sponge. I want to walk naked
and damp through the few rooms that have nothing
to say and take no interest—
the world speeding on without me.
