NAKED BUS
She catches the London bus
in her fist.
Gnaws it...then throws it
through the window.
Lucky the window wasn't
closed.
She chews it when
teething.
Chews its redness
- off.
She is amazed to see
the real thing for the first time.
For her
her toy has grown into a giant.
Then she discovers double-deckers.
Counts: "One double-decker bus...two double-decker buses
...24 double decker buses!"
It is unbelievably so!
Doesn't know she is counting
the same bus twice!
And now to add to her
amazement she
encounters a green bus!
Will the excitement never end.
"The bus has changed its clothes?"
she says unsure that this can be so.
But now confounded by a bus
all in white!
Even we have never seen
a bus in white.
It looks like it has taken
all its clothes off.
A **** bus!
But to her it's worse
far worse than that!
"The bus has taken
it's skin off!"
She refuses to go on
this skinless bus.
We wait for a "normal"
bus to somehow appear.
And appear it does
busy being a red bus.
The world of buses
restored to its proper order.
*
it was just a left over toy of a London red bus that a tourist would buy...it would fit in your fist. It was just around and when she was teething she would gnaw at it...it became a security toy! She thought, I guess, that this was the normal size of a London bus so you can imagine her amazement when the real thing blossomed into being for the first time....the tiny toy had become a monster. She would gasp in wonder that things could be so. So just when she had got used to this then she saw a green bus for the first time and she equally couldn't believe that they could be any other colour than red! Then there was the time when the world went crazy and they're were double decker buses. She just kept coming out with the remarks and then the white bus threw everything she knew outta the window! Over 30 years later a white bus crossed my path and indeed it did look naked as a jaybird or as Tilly then put it- skinless!
I never thought of it again until now....there is no memory store I can go to in order to write a poem...it has to organically grow back into place and just the happenstance of a bus being driven to put on its paint clothes or to get dressed with logos kickstarted it all over again.
It the kind of thing a poet/father will take out of his wallet and show you an emotional picture of his daughter.