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Current News
There's a little boy
alone at the bus station
surrounded by old tattered magazines
last week's news
stale cigarette smoke.
He can't be more than six.
He's spilled something
down his front
maybe chocolate ice cream
but that was days ago or just this afternoon.
Tears have cleaned rivers
in the dirt on his face.
The woman behind
the ticket counter,
Ripples when she moves,
her polyester uniform stretched
beyond reasonable limits,
doesn't notice
the small boy huddled
in a molded plastic chair,
the always fashionable color
of avocado green.
The fluorescent light overhead
whines and flashes
casting a green gray hue.
The boy has gone to sleep
chest rising in even breaths.
The 12:20 from Chicago arrives
a few groggy, stiff people
carrying luggage duct taped together
and herding half asleep children
head for the bathrooms and the telephones
to make arrangements for rides
away from the grim station
and the fat woman
working the ticket counter.
The little boy sleeps on,
covered by a ratty Yankee's jacket
No one seems to mind.
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