More Poetry on Buses

All from 1999. I must have read these the first year we were in Seattle - 2000.

Untitled

I keep a dandelion in full fluff,
Protecting it from breezes and my
Clumsiness
Having not yet found
The perfect wish

Vivienne Alcantara

When we went to school

You’re lucky

We sat in rows like bowling pins
The teacher rolled the questions
And knocked us over
One by one.

You toss answers around like basketballs
Even when you are wrong,
Your teacher never calls a foul.

Elaine P Bishop

Fourteen

As you slam plates, shove silverware, knock
pots and pans into drawers and shelves, suffer
the loss of TV privileges for some imagined misdemeanor,
hole up in the dark corner of your room - it occurs to you again,
that perhaps you were separated at birth from your real
family, the one with the Palm Springs vacations,
the hired housekeeper,
the effortless adolescence.

Donna Miscolta