like standing at a bus stop waiting to go
downtown to see that band you know
the cool one you had saved up for all summer
at that crappy job and your pinhead boss
because tickets were outrageously expensive
which meant few of your cool friends would be
there probably just those rich posers from
the west side who only like that one song
from the radio anyway then it starts to rain
and you have no umbrella because who carries
umbrellas like you were English or something
and the bus was supposed to arrive a few minutes
after you left the house and those few minutes
have moved passed without the bus arriving so
the rain is crushing your happiness like gum
wrappers we used to throw at each other in geometry
class which drove Mrs. Janak bat-shit even if you were
figuring out the right angle to take in order to smack
Wayne upside his head the smarmy little red-neck
that he was but the rain doesn’t really matter anyway
because it has slacked off a bit and you are going
to see that band the really cool one whose name
for some reason has slipped away like lizards
down a wall and into the rosemary bush nearby
so you reach into your pocket to check on the ticket
for the like nine billionth time since you walked
out of the house when an old junked out car
slams past going like a hundred and ten miles
per hour through the puddle of water next to the bus
stop where you are waiting and it throws up
the entire puddle like a blanket over your head
and there you are wet in every crevice of your being
as if you just slipped from the womb placenta oozing
behind you like puppies after their mom when you
realize your ticket to that band you know has also
become soaked and the ink has begun to run like squid
escaping an attack so much so as to become illegible
even if you could read a bus schedule to see the bus
was never coming today and you become old and
your ability to distinguish one moment from the next
like the one time promise of your life has diminished
to such a degree that the difference between will and
memory has blurred into the spray of my passing car
(April 26, 2013)
