Written by Elizabeth Gauffreau
The bus idles at the curb
as the driver stoops to load
some haphazard luggage
gathered at his feet.
He places each
battered suitcase
faded duffel bag
beat-up backpack
inside the belly of the bus
as if it contains something
fragile and worth preserving.
The diesel engine
chatters, clatters
chugs and coughs,
those waiting to board
oblivious to the fumes
having boarded a Greyhound
so many times before
still believing
this geographic cure
will be the one to save them.
.
Elizabeth Gauffreau is a New England fiction writer in poet’s clothing. She has published fiction and poetry in literary journals, including DASH, Remington Review, and Woven Tale Press, as well as a novel, Telling Sonny, and a poetry collection, Grief Songs: Poems of Love & Remembrance.