Articulated Bus
by Julie Gard
Have you ever been on a bus with an accordion joint in the middle, and have you ever been standing on that joint when the bus turned a corner? It’s a raucous affair. Your body turns sideways and you lean over, a crooked supplicant. You put one foot forward and brace yourself however you can.
Many years ago, a girlfriend and I rode to downtown Minneapolis on such a bus. On one of the wobbly turns, a young boy looked up at us with the biggest, darkest eyes. Are you twins? he asked. We moved together and apart and smiled at him. I forget which one of us said no. After that we liked to say, We’re not twins, we’re lesbians. We’re not lesbians, we’re twins.
On an accordion bus in Vladivostok, when I was in love with one person and crushing on another, I felt the folding joint in my gut. As we hit a sharp corner, my body froze. But you can’t stay stiff in those moments; you have to give yourself to the turn. Grab on to the pole and your backpack, but whatever you do, bend.
Julie Gard’s prose poetry collections include I Think I Know You (FutureCycle Press), Home Studies (New Rivers Press), Scrap: On Louise Nevelson (Ravenna Press), and two chapbooks. Her poems, stories and essays have appeared in Gertrude, Clackamas Literary Review, Blackbox Manifold, and other journals and anthologies. She lives in Duluth, Minnesota and teaches writing at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. You can find her online at www.juliegard.com.