You never know what the melting snowbanks will reveal

Speaking of poetry, the other day I stumbled upon a poem I wrote, oh, back in 1998 I guess, when I was an undergraduate at the U of MN...an old poem that I was proud of at the time yet had forgotten about...

By Chance

It was all arranged as though
Aphrodite had enchanted our sphere
with a dip of her wand--
the sad, saggy number four bus.
In that moment when he stepped
from the black bearded snow banks,
the crushed bird bones and
plains of asphodel into the bus,
we were transformed.
The bus driver shouted out
his salutations and Mr. Runny Nose
wiped his namesake on his sleeve
and that woman with her carton
of GPC smokes waved her red and green
hat patriotically as though
watching the parade of his
nice ass moving by chance
toward me to stake out that seat
across the aisle and one place up.
If this had been the Last Supper my
right eye would have been
the apostle Judas.
Fourteen years old can you
believe I am actually writing this
you must think I am a pervert
and maybe I am but I broke
no laws in watching him
out of the corner of my eye.
He carried his book bag
on his lap like he was afraid
of Mr. Runny Nose taking it
and bolting for the back door.
To occupy his younger mind
he took out a piece of bubble gum
and put the pinkness between his lips
and just by chance the smell
came forth like cloying
perfume to my seat--
the smell of bubble gum
trapped between waxed paper
baseball card packs and
resting in penny candy jars
of country stores near the place
where I grew up.
The smell from his mouth,
I sucked it in and ate it up
as fast as I could as if
somehow I could become full
from just that.
Never
had I smelled
anything so nice,
the smell of youth
and saliva
coming from this
young boy's mouth.

william e. jones | things magazine | track airplanes in realtime on google earth | hating on geekslut