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A man on the bus looks out the window
to the sidewalk. He is scowling,
mouthing words to himself, and I wonder
what he is so determined
to frown about.

Perhaps he is plotting
the overthrow of civilization, or
maybe he is trapped, imprisoned
behind the panorama
of the wide bus windows.

However, it is a distinct possibility
that he scowls because he is tracing
the frame of a poem, rolling
potential words around his mouth
like "nascent" and "crystalline,"

and his train of thought is being
constantly derailed by another person
on the bus, frowning, mouthing,
scribbling into a palm-sized notebook,
and glancing up at him now and again.