Three Poems
455 Wonderland, Delayed 455 Is a New Vehicle at Every Stop, and En Route to Wonderland, I Couldn’t Help but Hear

455 Wonderland
A bus is an exposed thing. Especially the backest seats, high as a carriage; Ear-blocking altitude seated procession, strapped down by Ear-itching roar, huge can opening and the fizz release loud, No seatbelts for row sitters. The seats present streets to you, show you to them. Being in a sparsely filled bus against the back inner Wall stacks optimum sight-blockage forward: The seats ahead (all of them), fellow passengers’ heads In front, your willful hair, everyone else’s after. The windows were cleaned outside by Sand, grit, fine street dust, pavement leavings; Rain dried the dust into square U and L prints outside, Decidedly rushing down, you can feel rain now. The windows were washed inside by greasy heads. Machinery aside, the window putty sealant: Hardening as it began, extruded into a mitered corner, Someone pressed in worms hung around an empty center, Leaving snakes too short to follow a roundabout. They tried to flatten the extruded window putty sealant But there was no rag or sponge – thus the thumbprint.
Delayed 455 Is a New Vehicle at Every Stop
Lafayette at Harbor, eight gone even then, spiked shadow buoys Drifted flatly, vacantly barely over two new exposed heads, tickling Four shifting shoes’ peeking outsoles, smothered cement; two on. Lafayette at Cedar, one wondered, one explained, both seated Under fare transformation notices; all shadows elongated since then. Lafayette at Hancock, the street looped, flamboyant, even longer, Four huddled on then, three off, the vessel’s future route was taken By the old vessel returning, or the future vessel, hail ahead, rain behind. Lafayette at Holly, slush now in the squeaking rounds, only the driver In the frontleftmost booth, you lifted by the backrightmost blue throne, Carols misinterpreted by lows in the air, they became intermittent Pricks despite roars chewing ears, unchewing short days longer already. Lafayette at Laurel, where two thousand boarded. All heads incrementally Shut down: eyes, necks, a message for instant waking; why not stop here? Lafayette at Ocean traded numbers and size: no shirt, no shoes, just Webbed feet and gray mottled feathers, no payment, no schedule, learned. Lafayette at Forest, no stop, no street, path’s mulch boarded, then Lafayette at Loring, roll down the aisle, bang circling shoulders on the Poles, the opening midbus doors; roll out, roll across the street to Sullivan.
En Route to Wonderland, I Couldn’t Help but Hear
The emergency exit roof hatch open for ventilation Pinch-knocking along. I remembered the town’s bench All rainsoft; rotted planks draped paintwise over their Four-footed cement base. Air digging cold in, wind scooping Chill; a pierce following the automatic bypass safety valves Shooting curvedly through everyone’s stacked ears, Blast-sliced, no less fiercely rushing. I remembered when The bench was stiff, dry; also pledging always to stand Blocks from it. Emergency exit roof hatch open for ventilation, Chomping its skin-grown-over teeth – latch all clothed; higher highs Disallowed, not trusted with bench-sitting. The operators in varied neon Mostly sit on planks of their own sawing. Not pressure treated; Not stained, painted. No bolts stay put here, no cement dries In the operator’s booth; the operator sits on the planks, Sinking into the vat of wet cement. I’ll follow this?