Classic Poem

It's hard to improve on the poetry of a bus,
a city bus — whether full of passengers,
friends and strangers, or with no one but the driver,
or empty, dead in the water of lot or barn:

a box with wheels and windows. Empty form
waiting for content. And yet, how form alone
makes a clear statement, although just what it says
is hard to say. Then the driver pulls it out,

it streaks through storm, now flashing Not In Service
from its radiant forehead, polluted and obscured
by splattered mud, till it can reach its station

and help to ease the overflow of us
waiting in anger. Then we all barge in
and improbably improve the poetry of the bus.











From Poetry Magazine, Vol. 186, No. 1, April 2005. Used with permission.