The Cough on the 42

The bus pulled up, wet hiss.

I stepped inside, then heard it, a woman's cough,

a dry, rattling sound from the front.

It scraped along my nerves, like chalk.

My chest went cold.

Outside, the condensation on the window

smeared the streetlights into blurry halos.

Someone's old coffee grounds in a bin, a faint sour smell.

Everything shifted, just a fraction.

The way the light cut through the haze,

the sudden, specific quiet

after that cough died out.

It pulled me back to a different silence, then.