On the Bus

by Lucy Anderton

That silky
hair black

and guided
into a slim

river down
her back was

all he could
see—won

dering if she
liked to have it

pulled back
hard and then

her head
when she

was being
fucked—she, turn

ing to look up
at his face

skin tight
around his

mouth eyes
glistening

with something
ancient. Something

battered and
so ordinary.

 

Lucy Anderton has work appearing or forthcoming in The Iowa Review and American Letters & Commentary. She splits her time between Chicago and Auvillar, France, where she is the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts artist-in-residence for 2005 and 2006. (10/2005)