I wrote this in lockdown 2020 specifically for 1000 Monkeys, a local poetry group. The poem rhymes more than I normally do because I suspected that Janice, who runs 1000 Monkeys, would like it. She didn’t put it in the newsletter, but she put the one I wrote after this one, which is on here already somewhere (about my dog). I think it works best read aloud (by me, ideally), and they enjoyed it on the Zoom at a later point. Some kind of lesson about perseverance there …
On the number three bus
We wait at the bus stop, my mum and me,
her hand wrapped round mine.
For all the time it takes to rumble down the hill
we strain to see if it’s lucky Three,
or the less propitious Nine.
We wait in line with the OAPs,
Whose chat clogs the air like
talc in the breeze.
I giggle too loudly and they mutter
‘She needs to watch her P’s
and Qs.’ Mum just smiles and strokes my hair.
We wave at the bus, my mum and me,
watch it grumble to a halt with a deep diesel snort and a
hot, stale hiss.
Mum pays the fare and we clamber upstairs
as the unleashed beast lumbers on with a screech
and a judder
but we are prepared:
we brace as we climb the steep spiral stair,
like Jack on the beanstalk
emerging to light
and the favoured front seat
that gives me the height to brave any fight,
to ride the wild stallion on into the night.
On top of the world or as near as can be.
On the number 3 bus.
My mum and me.
Just waving 