Music-free Buses

thinking, breathing, reasoning,
reading human being

unavailable therefore, like sardines in a tin,
with heads off, stacked partially atop each other
until what’s containing them, is full of them

on local buses, just like this, treated like this

in the crevices in the can,
between, beneath, around, about fish bodies,
water’s poured or some sauce flows

when the bus is stuffed with bodies,
windows shut, air condition on or not
music’s turned on, turned up,
fills in all the empty spaces

but I am a breathing, reading, reasoning
human being within a can, under pressure

enter the bus to get home, to get to town
in addition, pay for torture


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2006
9:11 p.m. 08/feb/06