Issue 3: Lauren Camp

Girl on a Bus

While her folks covered the full distance 

of an argument, she entered the station at 2nd 

and Main; at the counter, she scheduled 

the nervous destination of Hope 

because she believed

it might exist. The girl was raised sharp,

spent after-school hours on a rickety bicycle

and climbed fences to tangle with freedom. 

She never ratted on the bargain business 

conducted in alleys, never minded 

the dark steam of each day lifting 

from the flat table of tar,

but she’s tired of her parents’ wrinkled moods; 

that’s why she’s traveling 

through a sepia rendering of tomorrow

on a bus faltering along. 

Almost noon, 

and Hope is the flat middle of the country. 

The polyester seat gums into her shorts, 

then pops when she leans forward. 

The girl’s eyes are rivet and handle 

on a porous childhood: 

the kind that don’t often matter.

This yellow bus rearranged her future, 

and now she thinks

she’s getting somewhere. She traces 

the journey on her leg, then pinches her skin 

to put in a mountain, to climb over something 

other than her heart. In the bus, 

she almost feels buoyant. 

--Lauren Camp

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