Bus note 81

The colouring book is very small.
        Reads: My name is...
Mother asks his name
        and he draws
        a thick blue skyline.
Book's full of stuck in eyes
and pictures of broad skinnylegged men
tottering.
        Tips of her nails
        painted with dark half moons.
Brightness of her woven cuffs.
        She touches the pages softly.

Portrait 11

           skylight white
                            bleach corridor

She conducts mute themes
               coming from photographed faces
           of people who are dead

       Come evening, a small whiskey fuming

                            Our Lady of Lourdes

                    her Irishness

            a golden brooch
                 her hands hold
                          closed

Bus note 80

Someone had penned
"I luv cunt"
on the window
in purple marker.
        Boy with too awake eyes
plagues his older brother away.
        One stop gone
        and he calls him back;
        a stringent rhythm.
In this damp heat
too thick a coat
        and the tether frayed.

       

Bus note 79

        Cars go past
        the bus front
with made up necessity.
        Hacked lungs
sound in blinding light.
        Girl coats
        dark lashes
        with dark clinging dust.
Quiet scent of excrement:
        a work signal.

Boy with Pitcher in Rain

Picture bubbles up
and peels at bridge
to paling flesh tint
for a snug mouth
sightless wet and
unfelt or a wound
all raw and genital

First ever thirst
there was again

Bus note 78

Going home
with the late shift:
        their other languages,
        inflections.
Drizzle softens
street lights:
lens vaseline.
        Thumb smudges
        on the seats
        show up just.
Two bus nuts run through
the numbers: their intervals
and the last ones.
        Three seats in front
the red woolen cap is a sun.