ON THE BUS

With one way tickets
on a Simonized black bus,
there’s standing room only
for faces of strangers
with a zincish-hue.

Like the unknown soldiers
in the terracotta tomb,
they stand silently
as the bus moves along
on ribbons of light,
fast as a hydrofoil
two feet off the ground.

The motor thrums softly
like a fat purring cat
as it moves toward a haze
in a world of the Bitter Name.

The sun glints off an emblem
on the driver’s white coat,
an award he obtained
for driving un-maimed
on over one trillion trips.

Like the funerary art
of Qin’s mausoleum,
all of the passengers
will have work to do
when the bus arrives
at the cast iron gate of
the Baron De Hirsch.

They’ll clean up the ivy
and right all the headstones
vandals turned over.
Keeping barbarians at bay,
they’ll carefully provide
comfort and bliss
for all the descendents
lined up and waiting
to board the next bus.