by Michael Bettencourt

Created on: June 28, 2008   Last Updated: August 13, 2011

Old Lady on the Bus

There is a moment when winter
finally locks in,
when the snow-dunes become
mounds of grey crust,
when ice grouts the sidewalks,
when all light, sun or lamp,
grits the eye.
I think most often of 4:30,
the daylight standard darkness coming,
when cars pontoon by and
people slither on shot feet.
I think most often of a bus pulling away,
the marginal light of its innards
wrapping faces startled and tired.
I think most often of an old woman,
French-Canadian, kerchiefed
swaddled and shopping-bagged,
struggling off at her stop,
French curses salting her way as she skids
along undershoveled sidewalks, then turning
up a driveway and into a house where
in the backyard, shielded by a bathtub,
stands a Virgin Mary worshiped by
three androgynous children,
all bathed in the benediction of
a red light bulb which strews
a mulled fire on the calloused snow
keeping winter here just a bit off-balance,
a small ring of fiery keys
in this city shut and bolted.

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