The Bus Stops Here

Your mind is a county fair 
but the entrance shifts 

every time I approach, and
the rides fade or hum away 

into the pastures, long past
their second mowing, bales 

rolled and stacked two-high. 
When you speak, I hear instead 

tractors bogged-down 
in the pull, or greased shoats 

squirting free through children’s 
arms – no prize too little, none 

too great – words cracked and 
twisted into other possibilities. 

We watch the races, and the 
horses round the curve 

but never reach the finish, as 
the haze becomes a blanket 

we lie on, munching corn 
dogs and funnel cakes among 

the ant mounds and debris. 
You ask what happened to the

cow lady, whether I prefer anthrax 
to rabies, and if we’ll be forced to

walk home or hitch. I don’t know,
I say. Neither. The bus stops here.

* * *

“The Bus Stops Here” was first published in Juke Joint, in March 2020.