In the beginning was a school bus

From one of its olive green Naugahyde seats
an 11 year old girl’s belly—
while trying to imagine her own
insignificance despite her Christianity—
disappeared into endless space,
into the place that holds all things
but is not held by anything else.

Her eyes fluttered.  Bouncing in the seat
over pot holes brought her belly back,
a nausea. When the bus stopped,
she walked out of its metal walls,
across the street, into the dry-walled walls
of her own home with the hidden key
under the railing. She turned on the tv.

2009