The 73
The steel-blue bus sailed round the wide
rain-darkened esplanade that cordoned off
the city hall, late Doric, grandiose,
and Mussolini grey.
I ran because I could and landed on
the moving platform cancelling my speed,
and climbed the spiral stair, and sat
considering the silver badge, the stoup
where holy water might have quenched my ash.
Blue filled the window now, a lighter blue,
a morning light, a quarter after nine,
I estimate, I estimated then,
when time was fluid, when there was plenty,
the conductor was busy, the ride
would be free, a penny saved was a penny
gained. I gave myself over to thought.
The bus either hurtled or crawled. It lurched,
and it was you I saw, raincoated,
hurrying, towards me and away, and always
from above. I could have dashed downstairs
and leapt into the traffic, hurdled the road
and given chase, but we had gathered speed,
I dithered, you rounded the corner, and that was
the last of you I saw.
Terence Dooley‘s translation of Eduardo Moga’s Selected Poems has just come out with Shearsman Books, and his own poems The Why of It with The Argent Press. He has edited Penelope Fitzgerald’s essays A House Of Air and her letters So I Have Thought Of You.