Welcome to The Rumpus’s National Poetry Month project. We’ll be running a new poem from a different poet each day for the month of April.
Big Legs on the Bus
How old could you be
And still popping your collar?
We live in pictures. See
You in that plaid, thigh-kisser
Overcoat, buckled shoes,
Laugh lines? How does that hair
Stay so gilted after all those
Cigarettes? One more flight of stairs
One more 3×5 to post. They’re
Forest Lawn hills, mossy maze of
Refrigerator racks, bowling
Girlfriends. All those graves
Made golden in the magic
Hour. Marissa doesn’t think
Our car will last much longer,
She’s freaking out over her
Mocha because the air
Around her flares into
A shapely seagull. We live
In pictures of each other. The new
Tape-paint combo is no
Good. They slip right down
The wall. The heat, the gin sweat
Of matte surfaces in late
Fall. On the bus again: Ontario
Routes to great destinations.
The slant orange eight AM morning,
The driver underneath shoveling
Luggage underneath the seats for
This one trip, this quick remedy.
-George Ducker
If you like what the Rumpus is doing for National Poetry Month, you’ll probably like this multimedia anthology of original poems we’ve run at The Rumpus over the last three years. Available only for iPad. Check it out!
