Out in the country there’s a meadow
filled with old Blue Bird school busses, hundreds
of them, parked side by side, rust crusting
the bumpers, vines crawling over them tugging
downward. But let’s not dwell,
every bus has its last stop.
Graveyards abound. We go knowingly,
seated if we’re lucky, hoping to cruise, braced
for ruts, playing tic-tac-toe in our breath
on the window, aware it’s always a cat’s game.
I say drive me to my final rest in one of those
Blue Birds, everyone singing do-wah-diddy like we did
in band a million Fridays ago coming and going
to games. Win or lose, we sang. Sang
ourselves beyond ourselves, one state to another.
— from Juniper Volume 5, Issue 2