Bus Trip Home

Bus trip home from school on Thursday
Glossy, dark and rain outside
Smearing swear words on the steamy
windows where the worlds collide

Jostling, humid, dog-eared pages
Pencils, muddy boots and books
Girls sing ‘oh, she’s just outrageous’
Burn the boys with icy looks

Clap on shoulder, see ya smelly
Shoot him with their finger guns
Warm front rooms (hot tea and telly)
Gobble up the lucky ones

Bus stops come and go. The voices
Dissipate. He stays on top
Thinks ‘of all her nutty choices
Why live by the furthest stop?’

He’s alone. The plastic bottle
Drunk and empty, dances ‘round.
Hang on when the burst of throttle
Throws him with a panic sound

Up the hill and corner-tipping
Then the brakes, the wheezing door
Puddle splish and drizzle gripping
Chills him to his dismal core.

Cold, cocooned in bus-stop gloom, he
Looks towards that sombre place.
Peering from his mother’s room, he
Sees her weakly smiling face

Vodka slops, she lurches, crumbling
Scrapes away an errant tear.
Now he’s home with splintered, mumbling
Wretched, ruined Mother-dear