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  • To the Ode, and: Elegy, with City Bus and Blue-Haired Girl
  • Lance Larsen (bio)

To the Ode

True, you intimidate me, but when I slip you on,like Horace's bathrobe, all things cometo life: an ant as worthy of praise as a phoenix,a Styrofoam cup as capaciousas a Grecian urn. Nothing too trivial for you.Not clouds, not the bent spooncarrying oatmeal to the dowager's mouth,not spotted dogs in heat.Under your watch, Dejection and Joysmoke the peace pipe and take upresidence in adjacent flats.Thanks to you, I talk to my orange juicebefore I drink it, I begin a Q and Awith the rain, sadness and greedconverted into longing. Behind my sternum,an ancient Mayan city. What is water,but a confessor, willing to wash away my grit? [End Page 156] What are train tracks but a ladder to heaventurned on its side? What is a rottingmouse but a country of flies buzzing with praise?

Elegy, with City Bus and Blue-Haired Girl

If three things made her beautiful waiting        to board the 822,    four left her lost, though in a month of Thursdays

I could never name them. From my seat,        I could tally    colors—hair several shades of darkening

sky, a shopping list in green scribbled        up and down    her left arm. Or was it a manifesto?

She was the last in line, so I had plenty        of time not    to fall in love. Bright but cold outside,

one of those March mornings when if        you're a body    of water, it's better to flow shallow

than run deep—more surface to suck up        a feeble sun.    But also more brooding, more vulnerability, [End Page 157]

more time for a boy with a shaved head to cut        in front of her    before she stepped on. They faced

each other, his back to the bus door.        Not this time    he said without saying, and crossed

his arms in leather. Such things happen        in Newark    or outside boarded up Conoco stations

dreaming of recreational arson, but not here:        not in the shadow    of Lincoln Middle School—where custodians

emptied garbage in French, and ivy falling across        the teacher's desk    taught everyone to photosynthesize, breathe in,

one two three, even on chilly days, even if a girl        with blue hair    kept saying, Don't bring it, don't bring it, don't bring it.

But he had brought it, his body a gate        that wouldn't swing,    a locked gate that turned everything public.

Lost Girl vs. Loser Boy. A hush hung        between them,    against which she tried to move. He countered.

Lovers these two, you could tell, by the way        they touched    with their eyes. They had entered burning [End Page 158]

buildings in tandem, counted petals        and uncles    on parole, tic-tac-toed the constellations

from a broken mattress under a bridge—        only not now.    Now she shoulder-butted him, and he pushed

back. Which made three of us stand up,        and two of us    reach for our cells. But no, not a push exactly,

something short of that, a meanness you could        get away with    at bus stops, under the trembling of a red-tailed

balloon caught in overhead branches        that should    have signaled desire, but just hung there, a rag.

And the school bell, when it sounded, rang        out advice: Save her,    push him away, try anything. But if we tried,

he'd just give it to her worse later on,        wouldn't he?    Whatever It was. It pushed down on us,

tasted the air we drew into our mouths,        dripped the stairs    to pool at their ankles. Then children poured

out for recess. "Miss, do you need some help?        Hey, Miss."    The driver punctuated his offer with tenderness: [End Page 159]

he knelt the bus. Yes, knelt it. In a whoosh        of hydraulics,    that behemoth dinosaured to its knees.

Which offered her something—seconds        and second chances,    offered her a pause, chivalric and ridiculous,

in which children dodge balled and four squared,        and all of us    dropped fifteen inches out of our newspapers

and complacence. Offered. Plenty of...

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