AN AMERICAN PAPYRUS: 25 POEMS

by Steven Sills

Post Annulment 2

Afferent, the city bus cramps to the curb and brakes

through

Solipsistic muteness

With an exhaltation startled and choking.

As the sun blazes upon the terminal's

Scraped concrete

The shelved rows of the poor men

Hear the sound die on the pavement

In a gradual dying echo.

A cigarette succumbs to the voice as

Carrion brought to life; all the tattered people

awaken;

And a man spits toward the tire of the bus,

But misses.

And as he watches his own spit vanish

From the hard crest of the world,