On How You Get to the Next Day

Four o’clock
no, maybe 3:30.
The upper deck of the bus is
blue with 11 year olds in
school uniforms seething
dissonant, like an orchestra
tuning up. I am late.
The bus is late.
There is nowhere to sit.
The boys pummel any resonant
hollow compartment
while the blue girls cannot entice
teenage boys draped
across the pavement
no matter how hard they slam their palms
against the windows and
shriek the names of dead saints.
The staccato blasts of shouts into
mobile phones
waking the dead-
(oh yes please
wake them
wake them now)
the slapping closed of vents
lightening bolts of laughter and
heavy boots on spiral stairs.
And then I see him.
A five year old boy stands at the front.
He sings softly to himself
tapping the window with his small fingers.
He understands what he is hearing
as I once did
and he sings along-
he knows the words
by heart,
tapping out the rhythm
of summers to come.