The crammed bus turned suddenly,

and she as well as the dingy ones

each fell against another, grabbing in all directions

to hang on somewhere. We’d all been riding, idly

watching her, the platinum blonde

dressed in fur and polish, as in hot weather

one might meander toward the center of a park and stare

without thought to the bright reflecting pond.

Being a stranger there, I looked out to see what

had jostled us, and found in the glass not

the face whose prominent red lips I’d been imitating

to myself, by my own; and behind it the railing’s

rotten lace that hung above a river darker than

water and thicker, the Arno drawing rain.