You are riding the bus again
burrowing into the blackness of Interstate 80,
the sole passenger
with an overhead light on.
And I am with you.
I’m the interminable fields you can’t see,
the little lights off in the distance
(in one of those rooms we are
living) and I am the rain
and the others all
around you, and the loneliness you love,
and the universe that loves you specifically, maybe,
and the catastrophic dawn,
the nicotine crawling on your skin—
and when you begin
to cough I won’t cover my face,
and if you vomit this time I will hold you:
everything’s going to be fine
I will whisper.
It won’t always be like this.
I am going to buy you a sandwich.
a companionship epistle for the running-away alcoholic self; the reality outside the self is offering corroboration of no inherent will to hurt nor to 'fix' the self.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Of those included in this online collection, this is Wright's best poem. It's about one of our basic human conditions called loneliness. Reflection frames our loneliness and riding on a bus on an empty interstate puts us in the same seat with the writer. Good stuff.