AUGUST AFTERNOON: WAITING FOR THE BUS

Waiting at Main Street
and 50 South
for the bus that
never comes
and all the people
coming and going
past Continental Bank
and the FOR LEASE sign
CALL HENRY 359-8776
and the hunchback at the
pay telephone
and the woman weeping
outside the Delmar Lounge
as if it matters

Sometime I wrote:
'There is a black hole in me
that swallows light.
I am only afraid at night.'
This is not true.
At my left
another woman walks her dogs
two black poodles.
She carries a red bag
and walks slowly while
her dogs sniff at corners
and squat in the gutter.
Behind her
a window is broken.
The glass is shaped
like a W
or perhaps more like
a vampire's fangs.
Someone has shut up the hole
with paper and tape
as if holes
could be so cleverly
contained.

I see more clearly
things I cannot write
for all their clarity
before the world slips.
A thousand afternoons
the sky weeps drops
like small teeth.
If I had a throat
I would swallow them.
I have no mouth
only this pencil
and granite fingers.
The tears of the woman weeping
outside the Delmar Lounge
are fevers.
There is no hunchback
and no phone booth.
Henry is no one.
If I call up the numbers
no one will answer.