The Stop

The bus hissed open, a pneumatic sigh.

She stood there, watching the lights go by,

then stepped back. The doors groaned shut.

I felt the logic like a sudden cut.

I stayed for the velvet, the patterned seat,

while the engine died on a dead-end street.

Five years of sitting in the wrong place.

Her heels hit the puddle with a hard, wet pace,

sounding like a stapler, final and fast,

securing the fact that the window had passed.