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      January 3, 2022GladMichael Spence

      I’m glad that there’s this bus: my DUIs
      Mean someone else has gotta drive, surprise.
       
      To get to work by taxi’d cost a ton.
      A bike? You seen how many bikes get run
       
      Down on these roads? And I’d need to pedal an hour
      Each way, most likely during a downpour
       
      In the freezing dark. I used to think that losers
      Were the only ones who caught the bus. Like boozers
       
      Way worse than me—the kind who can never find
      Their fare. The driver oughta leave the bastards behind.
       
      Some people tell me they ride to save on gas
      And parking fees. Others are tired of the ass-
       
      Hole NASCAR wannabes on the freeway.
      I guess I’d say most of us here are okay.
       
      One day I sat behind these two old guys—
      So white, I swear, like a vampire’d sucked ’em dry.
       
      One said all gloomy-sounding: A former duchess
      Of Westminster said anyone seen in a bus
       
      Over the age of thirty has been a failure.
      The other shrugged: Let’s give it one more year.
       
      Then they laughed like my buddies at a kegger.
      The redhead came on that day—I wanted to beg her
       
      To go out with me, the way I used to
      When I got wasted. But I held off. I knew
       
      Slow was how to take it: my last girlfriend
      Dumped me because I was a weird blend
       
      Of pushy/needy. Late that night the cop
      Who stopped and breathalyzed me said: You top
       
      My record for drunkest pull-over. Bye-bye,
      License. This morning I caught the redhead’s eye—
       
      She smiled, though she was talking on her cell,
      So I can’t really be sure. What if I tell
       
      Those old guys’ story to her? Would she laugh?
      But not today: yeah, don’t give her even half
       
      A reason to bolt. Might have a chance, you know?
      Maybe she’ll get on my bus tomorrow.

      from #73 – Fall 2021

      Michael Spence

      “I spent a hitch as a naval officer aboard an aircraft carrier then drove public-transit buses in the Seattle area for thirty years, retiring from the latter job on Valentine’s Day, 2014. I like to say that that was the biggest kiss I could give myself. I started out wanting to be a fiction writer, but one day my writing teacher read aloud Galway Kinnell’s ‘The Bear.’ When I heard that, I thought, if poetry can do this, I want to learn how to write it. I especially like poems that blend the lyrical with narrative.”

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