MINIBUS 9
18.8.2003
Minibus 9 stops at Thousand Willows Development
and Workers Alpha, Beta, and Gamma get on.
Worker Alpha is old, so of course
he grabs a good seat, beside Fashion Editor Delta;
Worker Beta squeezes up against the door, while Worker Gamma snags a cushion.
Minibus 9 heads west, and then further west.
Worker Gamma has a revelation, leaping
into the window seat next to Driver Epsilon, as Driver Epsilon
sneers his disapproval. Worker Alpha nudges his
canvas sack away from Fashion Editor Delta’s
tablet computer. Worker Beta is the spokesman of silence.
He looks at the blue sky, seeing nothing;
he shifts his gaze to Driver Epsilon, his dashboard,
and his engine . . . a roar like locusts at his ear, still he sees nothing;
at length he decides to read the paper Worker Gamma had sat on,
a report on the fortunes of Worker Zeta, which doesn’t involve him, and still he sees nothing.
Fashion Editor Delta’s tablet computer
starts typing in the darkness: ‘wan dog, drifting clouds . . .’
his camera at the ready to beautify this little world.
The minibus brakes (the world does not), and Lady Eta and Daughter Theta hop on,
laughing, rocking, and nodding, like goddesses.
Worker Beta represents the world as such.
Tilting his head to cast off the abyss,
Fashion Editor Delta shivers in the heat, afraid
the abyss is himself. As for Worker Alpha, who no longer
believes in myths, it is the brilliance of Lady Eta and Daughter Theta that is the abyss.
The bank is Lady Eta’s destination,
and in the fantasies of Worker Gamma looking over his shoulder
she is a wandering mountain goat. Worker Beta
has no fantasies, his eyes black holes that erase all.
On the bus now only Worker Beta’s eyes are moving.
The bus is lost in the crevices of Worker Beta’s brain, drowning in the mountain goat’s pile of shit.