The Boarding

One of these days under the white

clouds onto the white

lines of the goddamn PED

X-ING I shall be flattened,

and I shall spill my bag of discount

medicines upon the avenue,

and an abruptly materializing bouquet

of bums, retirees, and Mexican

street-gangers will see all what

kinds of diseases are enjoying me

and what kind of underwear and my little

old lady’s legs spidery with veins.

So Mr. Young and Lovely Negro Bus

Driver I care exactly this: zero,

that you see these things

now as I fling my shopping

up by your seat, putting

this left-hand foot way up

on the step so this dress rides up,

grabbing this metal pole like

a beam of silver falling down

from Heaven to my aid, thank-you,

hollering, “Watch det my medicine

one second for me will you dolling,

I’m four feet and det’s a tall bus

you got and it’s hot and I got

every disease they are making

these days, my God, Jesus Christ,

I’m telling you out of my soul.”

Copyright Credit: Denis Johnson, “The Boarding” from The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly: Poems Collected and New. Copyright
© 1995 by Denis Johnson. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Source: Poetry (May 1979)