Somewhere Far From the Sea

It is a cold day but the fat boy sweats,
Giggling his jowls to bouncing blubber,
Cunning, prodding stubby fingers
In the joint behind the knee,
Grabs locket-twists of gilded hair.
His feverish pink and freckled skin
Jolts against me like the noise.
Uneasily, I stir:
The sealed bus enfolds us
In its velocity and spaces,
Far from the silvered sea.

Which breaks.
Crump beside the dunes.
All along the shore gulls view
Perspectives on infinity.

Publication details:"Somewhere Far From the Sea" was first published in Craccum on 8 June 1976. It was first posted on the Internet on 02 March 2003. Copyright © 1976, 2003 Hugh Cook. All rights reserved. Note: this is an autobiographical poem about riding on the school bus to high school, a poem written in the poet's teenage days.