"It's quite a pretty hell,
quite a pretty hell,"

said the wilting woman
to her plastic window self,

a half-tint fetch, etched
in the eye of the weevil

threading the black dough
of the crosstown bus route.

The nightclubbers behind her
exchange glances and hold hands

as she begins to hum to herself,
but the unvarnished melody

lodges in an angle of odd brain
& soon I'm humming it too

as I step into 18th Street's maw,
already bristling neon sweet

with milkmaid dress hems
threshing ruptured doorsteps -

turning up my street I catch
a last sight of the shushed bus husk

crawling away northwards
with only a scratching hum inside

for its heartbeat, and a face lost
in the catacomb of its reflection.