Bus Stop

I thought the Metro bus was coming.

I saw its LED display

a few blocks away.

But there it stayed, twinkling.

Maybe it wasn’t a bus.

Maybe it was just the season’s more luminous leaves.

This would have been

the third optical illusion today.

A demon turned out to be a neighbor’s picnic umbrella.

A centaur, but really only you,

wearing just my shirt.

Unlike illusions, days are kinetic.

No more waiting.

Lights approaching.

The #8 emerging from leaves.

—December, 2019

Published by Not a Press, October, 2021 and in my first collection Shops Close Too Early (Cathexis Northwest Press, 2022).