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.