Tuesday 9:00 AM

A man standing at the bus stop
reading the newspaper is on fire
Flames are peeking out
from beneath his collar and cuffs
His shoes have begun to melt

The woman next to him 
wants to mention it to him
that he is burning
but she is drowning
Water is everywhere
in her mouth and ears
in her eyes
A stream of water runs
steadily from her blouse

Another woman stands at the bus stop
freezing to death
She tries to stand near the man
who is on fire
to try to melt the icicles
that have formed on her eyelashes
and on her nostrils
to stop her teeth long enough
from chattering to say something
to the woman who is drowning
but the woman who is freezing to death
has trouble moving
with blocks of ice on her feet

It takes the three some time
to board the bus
what with the flames
and water and ice
But when they finally climb the stairs 
and take their seats
the driver doesn't even notice
that none of them has paid
because he is tortured
by visions and is wondering
if the man who got off at the last stop
was really being mauled to death
by wild dogs.

—Denver Butson

My Town

The first time my town saw the sky
it sucker punched us in the throat
left us breathless
said, “I’m gonna keep you awake some nights
without touching you.
You’ll make it up, the pain,
you always do.”
Now my town only buys drowsy formula sky.
Otherwise it gets too big, the sky,
like when we were three
before we realized:

We have b****.
The sky does not.
Therefore, we have bigger b**** than the sky.

Please
do not talk to us about hot air balloons.

Where rational conversation and big pictures are concerned
we have no time for getting wrapped up.
We are not presents for your sky.
We are just right.
And cute.
Like 3-year-olds.
Like the book about bunny suicides.
Cute like Old Yeller just before he got shot in the rabies.
A good actor, that dog.

My town was born way off the mark.
Sometimes we see it coming, the mark,
so we shoot it with precision-guided phallic symbols.

Every time there is talk of war
people give me reasons why their town
will be bombed first.
It’s a souped-up sense of self importance, Buck-o.
Everybody knows my town will be bombed first
because once
we planned the construction of a nuclear power plant
right here in the same fields where our military children
now carry out covert orders to keep the word dumb
alive.
Christianity does not work here.
It makes us believe that
even when we are alone
someone is watching us.
Now we are all narcissists.

We have a habit of giving other peoples gifts to ourselves
but at least our children still get their confidence booster shots
while our fathers perform voice reduction surgery
to keep our pleas for help
mime-sized
while our mothers bend infinity in half
so our families can continue to talk
in circles
while we all burn our tongues when we drink hot cocoa
for the same reason
everybody here
wants to hug the ocean
because it’s just so much.

My town knows that there is something so big inside of us
we have to suck
just to distract you from being directly overwhelmed by our real power,
the kind of power that makes you smile.
Everyone knows that smiling is for little girls, the gays
and certain kinds of fish who are smiling by accident.
The shortcuts my town has taken
have saved us so little time
gotten us so far ahead of ourselves
we have actually fallen behind.

Would have been better off
learning to herd turtles into bomb shelters
on a moments notice
giggling at the fact
that we will all now die
and it will all happen so fast
we will have never been anything
but really
cute
like our three-year-olds
who use folding chairs
to beat lambs within inches of their lives.

My town is inches tall.
It’s why the sky looks down on us,
wants to tell us something
like “Grow up.”
Or “Reach up.”
Or “Look up”
and watch me winking.
I’m trying to talk to you.

The Earth is travelling at 66,641 mph around the sun.
It simultaneously rotates on itself at over 1000 mph.
My town,
yeah,
it’s having some trouble sleeping.

-Buddy Wakefield