I rest my head
against the wide window
of the city bus.
It rattles my whole skull
but I can be a vessel,
the cracked soil
of a quake.
Take me, AC Transit
carry me where you think I should go except
I don’t ever
want to arrive.
I only want to
lie lightly in the here to there
to behold and be
held.
I say that I do not meditate,
but I ride home each day
and watch the windows blur.

Blur.
The whole day is a blur.
I must set my dread aside
with both hands.
Carefully now:
just sit amidst this cacophony
which bellows warm
as oiled wood.
The conductor raises her hands
and begins her wizarding.
*
We finish with a full chord:
the blinding inch
between the tarmac
and the wheels.
I strain my lungs.
I compress.
Singing toward —
not joy —
but its sister simplicity.

Unscrew the segments.
Pack them in their case.
I slip
into crackling stagnant static
until
a page opens up, oh
all that white space
like bedsheets
like the sky.
I read a poem and remember an oak tree
in the garden.
She stood like a matriarch
and lifted my chin,
You say the world is crumbling
but I am the world.