In Transit

Two backpacks on a bus
scrounging for change in a city
that doesn’t recognize me
slipping on sidewalks and
cursing the rain
the woman on the last bus
sneezed on me.
I am staring at the bus driver
trying to listen
not wanting to listen.
He says I need a dollar
and twenty-five cents
to add another zone – doesn’t he see
how heavy
how tired
how empty of change?
I don’t have…
Last night I walked
dark streets
and thought about patterns
and not belonging
and how afraid it makes me
to be insignificant.
At my age Blake
was a poet
Shelley an anarchist
on the brink of brilliance.
Byron was fourteen
for that first book of poems
and I
am not mad enough
to be a poet
nor sane enough
for anything else.
Where in this city
in this world
do I fit?


.........
So I'm going to try and blog a little more regularly. I think if I'm posting every day it'll likely force me to WRITE every day, which would be good for me. We'll see.