LatinosUSA

“Bus Stop” by Michael L. Utley


she stood there

stoic and still

as a river rock cairn

at the crossroads

bus stop

every afternoon

alone

save for her

reluctant shadow

that always seemed

to pull away from her

clawing at the gravel

to unpin itself from this

dirty-faced girl

with willow whip arms

and a mangled knot

of corn silk hair


she stood there

by my grandfather’s

mailbox with the

shot-up targets

and broken beer bottles

glinting dully

in the weeds of the

four o’clock sun like

dusty brown cataracts

and waited for someone

who never arrived

staring soundlessly as the

folding school bus door

juddered shut

and exhaust fumes

enfolded her

in a hydrocarbon miasma


she stood there

in her too-big

ratty plaid jumper

of indeterminate hue

and mismatched sneakers

and scab-caked knees

rooted to the ground

like some obscure totem

some miniature monolith

weather-worn

eroded

her features smoothed

by the passage of eons

at this nowhere bus stop

somewhere east

of benignancy

paused between

moments

stranded between

the dots of the ellipsis…


she stood there

as we piled off the bus

each day

a mass of larval humanity

gummed together

in sweaty profusion

and exquisite ignorance

and ran past her

down red dirt roads

that sliced through

cheat grass and junipers

sage and pines

kicking up dust

in our manic wakes

a mindless stampede

of vacuous hubris

and nascent dark desires

our souls’ eyes shuttered

against grace and mercy

our young hearts

already blackened

by vainglory

we perceived her

incuriously

in our periphery

discerned her

absently

incidentally

our puerile minds

negating her

ripping her brusquely

from the cloth of our

reality


she stood there

waiting

as the cracks

in the world

began to show

arrivals

departures

childhood’s horrors

comings and goings

day and night

week after month

after year

after generation

and I recalled her

vaguely

a tenuous mirage on the

distant silver horizon

of youth

and my children

and their children

spoke cryptically

of the uncanny silent girl

at the bus stop

until her novelty wore off

and she disappeared

from their collective consciousness

as their own childhoods

unwound in a chaotic blur


and the cracks widened

and deepened

and the world spun slowly

to a stop


she stood there

stoic and still

as a river rock cairn

in the withering gloaming

at the end of time

where no bus

had stopped

for millennia

where the damned

no longer

gamboled and

cavorted

where sepulchral silence

clung shroud-like

to the bones

of the earth

waiting for

someone

no one

anyone

and I approached her

my back bent with age

my gait halting

my old man’s eyes

dim and rheumy

my breath a rasping wheeze

and she looked at me

with pallid marbled eyes

and I recognized her

at last

and I sensed

the world sigh

and I took her

cold, ashen hand

as the final

sunset faded

and I waited

with her

---

Author’s bio:

Mike is a deaf writer/photographer who lives in rural southwest Colorado. His love of nature shines through his poetry and photography, both of which he uses to make sense of his world. His blog–Silent Pariah.