On the Bus with Dad

So, we sway,
oddly, this uncomfortable day,
finding our rhythm at last:
an uneasy one, jostled by cobbles
on our journey to forgetting.

Upstairs front,
shoogling the past’s prow,
this way, that,
me holding you,
me not letting go;
the bus shoves us
together.

You encased next to me, my daydreams swim in a
childhood’s wake, where, happy on shoulders
your hands manacle my ankles, making it
Now again. And no yearning for youth
or past is this, but a rueing of
understanding’s ebb;
(Did the silence set
before the
shorthand
of football
talk?)

Our mechanics had ground to a halt long before I
ascended to teenage inarticulacy. (Can you hear the
bus purr when it rests?)
Getting off at the old stop
and following a quarter century of scuffed
heels, dragging me into your history I turn
detective, rediscovering us when new.
Before faults opened and
closed our possibilities.

I scramble the fence posts down to the
Clyde-side. Down to the river’s edge.
Force an imagining of you
as a boy with faceless
friends, swimming.
And let you fly.

You rain down, a
drizzle of dust
sprinkling the
brown water,
sinking
to silt.

Amen.

No moving forward or going back.
I rescrew the urn’s lid waiting for
an impossible word. And know,
with you swimming, there’s no last bus home.

On the Bus with Dad

So, we sway,
oddly, this uncomfortable day,
finding our rhythm at last:
an uneasy one, jostled by cobbles
on our journey to forgetting.

Upstairs front,
shoogling the past’s prow,
this way, that,
me holding you,
me not letting go;
the bus shoves us
together.

You encased next to me, my daydreams swim in a
childhood’s wake, where, happy on shoulders
your hands manacle my ankles, making it
Now again. And no yearning for youth
or past is this, but a rueing of
understanding’s ebb;
(Did the silence set
before the
shorthand
of football
talk?)

Our mechanics had ground to a halt long before I
ascended to teenage inarticulacy. (Can you hear the
bus purr when it rests?)
Getting off at the old stop
and following a quarter century of scuffed
heels, dragging me into your history I turn
detective, rediscovering us when new.
Before faults opened and
closed our possibilities.

I scramble the fence posts down to the
Clyde-side. Down to the river’s edge.
Force an imagining of you
as a boy with faceless
friends, swimming.
And let you fly.

You rain down, a
drizzle of dust
sprinkling the
brown water,
sinking
to silt.

Amen.

No moving forward or going back.
I rescrew the urn’s lid waiting for
an impossible word. And know,
with you swimming, there’s no last bus home.