VINYL POETRY

Volume 5, March 2012

BIRDIE
Marcus WickerView Contributor’s Note

Something Like Sleep

Something like sleep dangled our heads from great heights. All of us, snuggling up to book bags and laptops in muddled morning light. A hard halt brought snow-flecked wind and three shadows to our heated bedroom—two of which shot past and rang through opposite sides of the aisle, arms outstretched, slapping what sounded like knees and seats. Something like a light bulb triggered inside the bus and a fair-haired woman shivered in a dingy pink cardigan near the driver’s seat. Her fine jaw line was full of life despite two types of red blooming from cheeks—only one of them chapped. Maybe we were all hung-over—too taxed from late nights at the office or library to wake. Perhaps, we were in another world—our headphones too jacked to decipher the driver when he rose from his seat, shrugged those monstrous shoulders and said whatever he said. Seeing this commotion, two tiny blonde girls, pigtails peaking from wet skullcaps, stomped toward the teary spectacle. Forming a wall before the driver, they spun the woman’s knees, nudged her hamstrings into winter wind streams, heads heavy with what pulls at my pen.