Wheels

This is a poem i wrote after spending several hours waiting for a bus that didn't end up coming.

Wheels

Sitting on a bus stop bench, cold crawling over me like a concrete spider.

the city spins around me, a little point of solitude, concrete bench pinning it to the ground,

as the cogs of the city grind all the people around in between them,

so i sit here and watch the wheels.

wheels of buses, turning in time with the concrete heartbeat of the city,

worn-out drivers, giving tickets, taking change, but never making any, even though they wish they could, they just keep going, slow moving blood clots in the city's arteries.

slowing and speeding as they see they are not the one to carry me today.

wheels on minivans carrying mothers and children,

their tires ground down, their rims wrung out,

their brakes screaming in tune to the children yelling, the mothers yelling back,

the radio yelling at them all.

worries piled into the trunk with the soccer equipment,

resentments bottled with the gatorade.

wheels with massive tires underneath the

jacked up, flame painted, exhaust pipe adorned, surround sound stereo pumpin' ,

"real man's vehicles barreling past in clouds of carbon monoxide and testosterone.

wheels with rusted hubcaps under the old green pickup

of a man doing the same job for twenty-five years and he isn't going to stop now.

He will keep working until his pacemaker stops keeping the peace,

because that is all he's ever done.

slow turning wheels on a hearse, celebrating someone's life and death

by adding a few more cells to the city's

ironclad arteries,

his soul spinning down and out through the wheels and into the

grinding cogs of life in the not-so-big city.

after hours of waiting, my bus arrives.

i decide not to get in.