Bus Rides

I haven’t taken the bus since San Francisco, when I was alone
but didn’t need to be. Stops were engaged by button not pullstring.

Down to the wharf and back up again, climbing the inclines I did not want to climb.

Far different from the school busses of long ago

with their stiff green ridges and endless mosaic veins.
All sorts of adolescent perversities to be found therein.
Destruction too of ripped vinyl, exposing the yellow stuffing
underneath, bleeding it out not for any other reason but
because we could. The back of the bus was the place to be.

I sat there after I got arrested. I had my badge of courage.

We played loud music back there, lifted girls’ skirts when

opportunity came around—all too infrequent. No one wanted to be stuck with the wheel hump.

Busses gave way to subways in another life. Petty crimes

and experiments gave way to booze and rats. Letdowns. Patterns of failure.

No more rides to the Great South and lost opportunities.

No casual accidents or snapshot flashes. No more not so innocent wrap arounds.
I’m done with them. Can’t even look at pictures anymore. This was not me.

This was not me.

1/26/10