“College Kid”

Attempted recreation (and improvement, I hope) of the second poem I ever published, in “Joycean Lively Arts Guild Review,” long defunct. Written in 1975, I think? Maybe 1976? Who knows now. I was in high school, no more than 15 or 16.

After shift I wait 
at the bus stop
where a loose dog
sniffs around and 
trundles away:
perhaps
to home;
perhaps
to other bus stops.

At the end of the bench
there’s a studiously
shaggy kid
sitting with
a shaggy copy of
“Beyond Good And Evil”
on his knee. 

He’s asleep 
or nearly so, oblivious 
to dog and man.

He does stir when the bus
approaches, jerks upright
into full fear
when he sees me sitting 
right there
looking at him. 

“Ah, college,”
I say to myself.

If I’d said it out loud,
he would likely 
not have heard me.