by Catherine Rockwood

 

It was a time of disasters but very small ones.

Friday, and a party on elsewhere.
A bus for revelers arrived at New Hall.

I saw it from the field outside
on my way to a friend in the blowing dark.

How the bright double-decker slid smooth toward a two-story portico
sheltering the new entrance to New Hall.

How glittering freed-up glass
ran down the front of the bus.

How the edge of the portico hit the upper windshield
of the dreaming vehicle like a grandmother’s hard slap

and stopped the whole thing, stopped it cold.

A few black-tie passengers
threw themselves backward to safety.

The portico stood at one
with its huge new addition

which idled in the gear of OH SHIT
with its forehead knocked open.

And I watched as still as a rock, as safe as stone,
not knowing what appetite had begun.

 

 

 

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Catherine Rockwood reads and edits for Reckoning Magazine. Two chapbooks of poetry, Endeavors to Obtain Perpetual Motion and And We Are Far From Shore: Poems for Our Flag Means Death, are available from the Ethel Zine Press. If interested, you can find more at catherinerockwood.com/about