The Transit Museum

On the bus back from the city I saw

a broad lady reined by overcoat

pause in the studded crowd.

Ten minutes later

I remember her, how the storm

washed the sepia sidewalk, 

how all the pedestrians stopped

before the finished painting: this street

was not dark or any one color,

but a stained glass wreck

of angles and men.

I saw the truest mess soak through that street.

And now I press my brow

to my water-veiled window as this vehicle

sighs into Short Hills.

Out there, 

even the remotest puddle holds its pose.

The unfeeling foot hesitates

over its own reflection, then

stumbles back

into the black and white

photograph of this drenched town, 

so false under glass.