Tonight's Poet Corner: Six Dollar Fare

Six Dollar Fare
by Belinda Roddie

Two men wait for the bus at Dutch Lane,
which, as the old residents say, "ain't what
it used to be." One man's face is burned brown

like a cowhide belt, while the other's is as white
as a porcelain doll - and he looks just as fragile,
too. They both rock with the wind, letting each heckling
gust dictate where their bodies sway, where their eyes
flicker - east or west, forward or behind them.

Dutch Lane smells as cooked as a day old steak -
there's spice in the air, but smoke gets in your nose
and the dust of summer lingers even in winter, coating
the insides of your mouth and forcing your words

to prematurely age. The two men are going in
the same direction, to the same place - the junior
college, to mold futures out of clay and see how
it bakes in the kiln, its stony mouth swallowing
heat and ashes and stories with fragmented endings.