POTATO TIME™

Going Home.

A young man came up to me as I sat at the bus stop,
asking for change to buy a ticket.
He said he’d just got out of hospital.
Because he overdosed,
and died.
For a bit.
He said,
and he needed to go home.

I didn’t have any change on me,
but I said I could buy his ticket on my card,
not a problem.
So when the bus came – I bought him a single.
He sat upstairs
and I sat down.

It seems a bit unfair that you made it back,
to find yourself at a bus stop where the only other person waiting there,
in limbo,
doesn’t have any change.
No penny for the ferryman,
who wears a blue polo and shorts.

I wanted to say – stay safe man.
Don’t do that again.
Whatever it was that you did.
Because I’ll worry about you for the rest of my life.
You will live in my brain,
in Schrodinger’s bus,
and I will wonder where you are.
If you are still here.
Sitting on the top deck.

Going home.

A poem by Fudge Cooper.