The blue bus is on the road to Kyiv.
It’s a Monday morning departure and is full
of those returning to their lives or taking new ones.
Refugees from exile in the Baltic – a nail
technician aiding beauty in Lithuania, an angry
woman shouting that the bus is early. Our
Google apps translate this as we go,
distracts us from the lime green store,
now blackened, twisted from a missile strike
that made the news back home.
We are interlopers on their journey. Have tickets
here and out to safety. So the land that passes,
striped greens and browns, is not ours,
but theirs. The engine shivers through our seats,
and the toilet scents the air with pine
and, faintly, piss. The road is arrow straight
as heads bent or nodding, think only
of the day ahead, the emptiness of promises.

April 2025