At the Bus Depot

AT THE BUS DEPOT Faces and suitcases with little rumbling wheels. The seat is hard and littered with yesterday’s paper. How can these moving actors know how it feels To be old and no longer a ticketed escaper? Faces fade past - abandoned at the end of the day, And suitcases are piled in a corner out of the way, With little ceremony thrown in the baggage space over the round Rumbling wheels of each escaping Greyhound. The seat next to every dark window is filled; and it Is hard to wave a cheery farewell to a stage unlit, And littered with unfinished details. With a regretful breath I recall Yesterday’s family get-togethers, kids’ parties and noise: Paper roses, children’s games, plastic toys. How can these faces care about fault or blame? Moving to every other city you can name, Actors waving through windows, waving and no one seems to Know how to live alone. It’s hard, it’s empty, It feels like a dream gone bad, the black blues, To be part of yesterday’s theatre reviews, Old , unneeded, socially undesirable, unwaveable, And no longer economically viable, without A ticketed reason to exist here in the depot. Escaper no more. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Written by Sydney Peck Entered in Debbie Guzzi’s Contest “Et Cetera”