Therefore

on the bright side of the bus
she was alone and cold
worried and stoned
laid bare to public transport
though we only understand her exposure years later
when the narrative closed neatly as an autumn pool-
she died and i was alive, a reader with a username

i knew i recognized her dimples and sweaty black bangs-

our buses used to go to the same summer camp, back where
the secret power of affected naivete was yet undiscovered
and every morning was filled with thrilling discipline
and bandy-legged intrigue

where the girls from morning round-up who once held so much mystique
are now married, or pregnant, or both
when i talked to them in random indeterminate meeting places
there was confusion, and i feel like i am trying to bridge a large distance,
speaking the events and circumstances of a life
with rock patterns and smoke signals
while in in The Cloud web handles and networks collide and co-mingle,

and handheld devices and the all-too human multi-task one another into orgasm or sleep

memory is a question of pixels and storage capacity and instantly loaded rationalizations

and with this thought I got off the bus

now let these thoughts of her appear on an ADD/PPT slideshow

and darkly float in bubbles above former selves

and these thoughts which kept me occupied

were absorbed in the facile warp and weave of

memory's cheap embroidery

was this a foregone conclusion?

must we bring a cold 'therefore' to every small town newspaper death?

burning silent judgment and a thousand dead words of sympathy?

it seems a shameful and cheap ritual

maybe there was a time when
i would have believed in a
mathematical proof for virtue
or in the verities of other people
but growing older can make you suspicious

and possibly republican
certain things sound suspicious
‘good intentions’ ring hollow and ominously
and so one turns inward

while salesman and cult leaders

get a platform for talking coherent systems

full ranges and completions for things incomplete

for everyone else, by now it's no secret new planets will appear in the sky
and new dinosaurs will be pulled from the ground
wholeness longs for absence,

voice demands no voice,

stagecraft helps itself

progress, Stalin-esque, steps forward and leaves its the victims behind for history

and our history is eating itself, hero by hero,

with the reader in charge, hero complicit to plot

now the reader sits in the yard on a wicker settee, under a clear moon,

and memory a killing field of poignant, static victims

and with them we are vicariously alive
and with them we get stoned

and time after time
run out to catch the bus

without a warm coat