I heard a stranger say his name. “One leg is shorter than the other” he says. He keeps his beard but I think we’d all be better sans the beards. And he is also short of normalcy and slight of sideways, which I am. His parents are not like my parents, mine are loving. He is safe in himself, I do not dare it. He does have a wealth of generosity, he calls me kind. Which I like, but remain skeptical. Of myself, and others. But you I think are good. You say that life is multifaceted. I think that’s good too.

The bus is a good machine for seeing. It has slow and heavy motions, it groans like an elephant, and grazes in the streets. It rattles like a shelf full of silverware in a mild earthquake. When the wind is in front it is a fast and steady cold. Outside there are bees, and nests of birds, and bicycles but in the bus, there is a man with a large suitcase. He is sleeping. I sit, trying to be still and untired.

A lady with cotton candy hair (like from the local fair) and a woman like a pistachio sit. The lady with marbles in her dress says “when is your baby due”? Mrs. P responds, “no baby”then takes a long drag from her cigarette. There is a glass of wine on a table nearby, untouched. A sudden bell sounds, shaking the table. It’s a loud bell, but sounds quite nice. The women are unmoved.

Do you know how to say hi?
I’m not sure. Maybe if I lie. If I pretend I don’t see you, a voice disembodied. Take my hand instead. Pretend I am a cat, something less scary than a person. Will you look me in the eyes? I will return the favor. We are very much alive.

That grey sky is full of sleep/
A silver bell of sky that sheds so much of itself down/
Water at the windows wet within the wood/
Water white as ghosts growing into stone/
******* out the green from the green and the blue from blue/
Silent as the view of the slate like sea/
Sinking in the basins of my slipping eyes

In my hair the folding air climbs and sings sound
Swanlike In the curves of my skin
And the seas speech frames many tongues of eyes bringing gold crosses
Emblazoned in the latticed roof of pine needles perforated ahead
A carousel of colors crawl through my brain
A natural electric stream
With cold, with cold surrounding
Undulating never into old
The forests of rainbows roll with
Singsong eyes the iced cream skies
call long into the arms of the ocean
Into the body of them
My body then embodied therein

Not that I was born for you
I'm certain
And you don't say
But in the end, move further away
And we two ships pass in the night
Unseen to each
And if I could have been made beautiful as you, I would have
I would give all my long nights
And all the me there is to give
To be the sun just slowly falling
On the softness of your face