Transfer Point

The alternator is a three-hundred dollar

weight in my chest.

The number four bus smells like

wet wool and floor cleaner.

A woman three seats up

is fighting a stroller.

She’s got that look—

the one where the hinges

are just about to give.

I lean my temple against the glass.

There’s a smudge there already,

a faint, greasy halo

where someone else’s head stayed

for forty blocks of the same

relentless, lurching light.