Plight 

Rust eats the bus
an incurable illness.
Hanging street lights
cocked broken heads in morbid kind of merriment
framed in the worn dusty dusk
of this recycled winter night
In the stalled line of cars
outlined figures of
every one,
and each waiting
for a ride to something:
And here, right next to me,
is someone—
who is everyone—
and doesn’t each someone
long to go back to,
or to move on from,
this thing to the next thing right now—
if only just to get away,
to flee the unseen revolution backwards
to right where we were
yesterday?

I wasn’t going to say  anything
seeing our
self-made urban blight:

it comes to me again
sunsets are supposed
to be stunning
and I believe
though we don’t notice,
even the land of Mars
hears our sighs.

• A Charity Johnson