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Bus Ride Home
by Lafayette Wattles

                                  

For the past three days,

     they've drained the pond

beyond the failed guard rail.

 

A bowl of mud,

with a few deep footprints

leading to and from shore,

 

as if left by those not ready

for this world

or some who couldn't take it anymore.

 

Every last fish to survive

the crash, dead on the edge

of that great

 

emptying. What

those eyes must have seen

through windows:

 

a school of impotent

hands

swimming wildly

 

into glass; the horrible faces

of epiphany,

as lungs refused

 

liquid breath; the hope-

less thrashing, twitching . . .

eventual un-mov-ing

 

end. For the past

three nights they've drained the sky,

searched the stars.

 

 

 

© 2007 prickofthespindle.com

 

Lafayette Wattles has been a factory worker, a banker, a jeweler; he's sold women's shoes, has been a Production Assistant on a film crew, and has also been a teacher. He has five college degrees, most of which have proven useless, although he's hoping his most recent, an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University, will change that once and for all. Lafayette has won a few regional poetry contests and has had his work published in several journals, most recently or forthcoming in Blood Lotus, Shit Creek Review, Runes , and The Louisville Review.