BY DARRELL PETSKA
Copyright is held by the author.
Blue: the hour, the Blue Line bus,
we seven souls in bus stop limbo
freezing feeling from our fingers and toes
while the great blue whale draws near,
returning dulled musings and fogged gazes
toward the numbing prospects of our indenture.
Would we live our headgear? Furry trapper hat,
Blue Jays cap, ear-flapped ascot, rainbow-pommed
beanie, cashmere fedora, tasselled chullo
and two-eyed balaclava, the latter occupied
by a black-leathered body more akin
to a pop-pop Harley than a whiny eBus.
The blue whale stops, swallows us, ploughs on.
Eyes lower to phones or cast cold glances
at those who speak, our common air a stew
of wet fabrics, coffee breath and defrosting bodies.
Now shall we stare stonily out leaden glass,
try Wordle, nod off — oh! it’s Balaclava Man
erupting from his seat and barking a command
to our Charon stand-in, who pulls to the curb
so the former can leap out, rip off his balaclava
and vomit into a snowdrift — we abandon him there,
and find beside us a seat mate not altogether
unpleasant, with a commiserating smile we share.
***
Like what you’ve read? Tip the author.
Darrell Petska is a retired university engineering editor and three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. His work appears in Verse-Virtual, 3rd Wednesday Magazine, San Pedro River Review and widely elsewhere (conservancies.wordpress.com). Father of five and grandfather of seven, he lives near Madison, Wisconsin with his wife of more than 50 years.
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