At 10:20pm on a Tuesday night
The number 14 bus is full
Bright, glistening, and fevered
These tired commuters expend vast energies
on wishing they lived here—so they’d be home by now.
Transients—the unhoused—talk in believable lies
About Portland’s oldest bridges
And salmon runs in the Willamette
And every time the bell signals a stop requested
Those of us remaining heave another sigh of delay.
At SE Cesar Chavez, which was 39th when I was growing up,
More people get off than on—
A man in a brutal cavity t-shirt,
A 30-something in a grey hoodie –
Both transferring, probably, to the line 75.
I get off around 47th,
Pass the long-closed and over-priced vintage furniture shop,
Cross the street at the fading crosswalk,
Pass a bar, a home cooking joint with and early bird special of $2.95,
Another bar, and a lonely busker playing guitar and singing Weezer.
In my building, on my floor, the hallway always smells like chicken
I’ve yet to cook, to even finish unpacking
But all of this already feels familiar
My first night’s commute home
And I am as practiced and nonchalant as a New Yorker in the City…
At least as much as a Portlander can be in Portland.
I’ll have wine, or tea,
Put on my lounging clothes
And settle into an evening alone
As if I’ve been doing this forever
As if we never were.