Waiting

Waiting

We watch
a woman waiting for her bus walk by
chewing a piece of gum while her body trembles.
Her jaw shakes without stopping, without tiring,
because the muscles always twitch on and on
in some unceasing race to death
but she doesn’t notice because
age has come upon her like moss,
slowly and thick.
That which was once a sigh of exasperation
or annoyance has now become her sole existence.
Every inhalation will tell her if she is to continue being
or if she will, suffocated by that invasive fungus
become slow and soft too, until she is no longer slow
but has stopped completely and is no longer soft nor pungent.
She looks around hesitantly as if she expects some ruffian to
attack her with a knife and triumphantly steal
her already used tissues and pink inhaler.
A decade or seven of science has passed her by.
She seems to sense this now
as she is among the eager faces that flaunt progress.
In their presence she wrinkles her face and tightens her neck.
Her eyes are tired and she wants to sit down
but the benches are full and she’s afraid
of being vulnerable
of being left behind
of dying
of smiling
of buses.
- Sarah Wagstaff