Vincent Colistro

Bus

I bought a bus pass from the Middle Eastern grocer on Fort Street
and some pomegranate extract and rosewater and Macedonian feta.

The grocer mentioned a cult of Jesus in Macedonia that only worshipped
His unopened side. The grocer mentioned abstinence in a creamy way

that disclosed perhaps more than was intended. The bus was a kind of
Chaucerian comedy. Stories of cuckolded friends of friends, an urban legend

about two lovers who ate each other, leaving a perfect, satisfied void.
The bus brushed against a low-slung garry oak, and I sat up straight

and closed my eyes. I thought about the cult of Jesus some more. The ads
above the windows appeared as ciphers, circles in triangles, an over-

abundance of V’s. Had this moment, or any moment, been hatcheted
and conjured for me? Where indeed was my permission to open and spill

out onto the floor of this Chaucerian bus, to know the floor? The theosophic
experience of selfhood struck me like a bumper, and I hurried off at the next

stop. There were no oaks. There were tall conifers policing a wide-open field.
O P E N, I commanded, but it didn’t. Each leaf of grass turned to me its darkened     side.


This is the text of "Bus" as Vincent Colistro intends it. The version in Issue #191 (Summer 2015) is incorrect.