I Can Usually Beat the Bus Home by Keri Smith

biking from work Sunday night
since they have repaved Myrtle Avenue
while my friend has been dead for two weeks
I pass by the park full of couples
and retired men sitting alone
and I call out to children crossing the street
please be careful, I want to say
please make it home safely, aren’t they beautiful
and my friend has been dead for two weeks
yet everyone has done their job
the busses continue their cross-Brooklyn routes
and I worked through another weekend
I missed the blood moon and the eclipse
and I missed the thunderstorms and the day at the beach
the summer has continued
without my friend, who has been dead for two weeks
and I won’t see her at the bar if I stop in
on my way home from work
I should keep biking down these quiet streets
so I can beat the bus home
before it lets off all its ghosts at my stop
they’ll file in, I’ll tell them about the weather
and fill them in on everything else they’ve missed

*

Keri Marinda Smith grew up in Florida but came to NYC to get her MFA in poetry at the New School. She works as the Assistant Editor at Hanging Loose Press and until recently, as a bartender in Brooklyn. She is currently isolating during the COVID-19 shutdown in her small Bed-Stuy apartment with her husband and chihuahua. Find her on IG @springbreakisover