This poem is taken from PN Review 291, Volume 53 Number 1, September - October 2026.
Four Poems
Girl on the Night Bus
At first I pray she’s on something –
acid or a phone-call to a friend.
Check her ears hopefully for buds but see
no white-cap mushrooms sprout
from the mosh-pit of her brambled hair.
The sight of even one noise-cancelling
headphone might supress some public
transport anxiety rising on the top deck
as the girl pulls on strawberry-flavoured stretch
candy and talks to nothing but fluorescent air.
Interjecting, after each perfumed snap, one heartfelt
side of the story to her windowed twin.
I should rise with the other commuters and move
downstairs quietly but I’m hypnotised by how she sits
like a god with herself so entirely. Unaware
...
At first I pray she’s on something –
acid or a phone-call to a friend.
Check her ears hopefully for buds but see
no white-cap mushrooms sprout
from the mosh-pit of her brambled hair.
The sight of even one noise-cancelling
headphone might supress some public
transport anxiety rising on the top deck
as the girl pulls on strawberry-flavoured stretch
candy and talks to nothing but fluorescent air.
Interjecting, after each perfumed snap, one heartfelt
side of the story to her windowed twin.
I should rise with the other commuters and move
downstairs quietly but I’m hypnotised by how she sits
like a god with herself so entirely. Unaware
...
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