Cuddled in the Bus Station
Cuddled in the bus station
in our old wool coats we agree
that the wobble in the axis
of our favorite planet corresponds
to the wobble in those organs
outer layers barely conceal.
Snow hustles the lyrical streets.
Buses gnash into numbered slots
and discharge patrons who slough
past us with hardly a glance.
Bundled in red you may suggest
a Christmas gift for the needy,
but in my black overcoat I’m grim
as the reaper himself. Safer
for strangers to ignore the smelting
of thick air around us. The cries
of metal on metal persist,
but as skyscrapers lurch and wheel
in the battered light the crimes
of the last century thicken
into focus, no longer black
and white but raving in colors
we hadn’t tried to imagine.
We have to re-edit and rewrite
every page of history we scanned
from high school onward. That text
left ink smears on our bodies
only the most devout lovers
could have licked or abraded off.
That wasn’t us. The wheezing
of diesels tries to arouse us,
but we’re upholstered in our wool
so nothing can penetrate
except the subatomic particles
we emit to hurt each other
subtly enough to ignore.
William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire (USA). His latest book is City of Palms (AA Press, 2012). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His fiction, essays, poetry, and reviews have appeared in many journals. He won the 2010 Aesthetica poetry award.