Greyhound SummersA Poem by Thomas W Case Mt books are available on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/Thomas-W.-Case/author/B0CL2RKDGX?ref=sr The summers with Dad when I was a kid started at that Greyhound station, that last stop before departure. It smelled like diesel, sadness, and old clothes that had been out of style for years. My brother and I holding tickets like they meant something, like paper could decide where you belonged. A lump in my throat that didn’t leave, no matter how much soda pop I tried to wash it down with. Strangers everywhere. Men with eyes lost on thousands of miles of highway and headlight madness. Odd-looking women dressed in layers, clutching their purses like every man was a thief. Time has stolen a lot from them. A kid, red-faced, crying into a sleeve his parents ignore. We boarded like cattle headed for the slaughterhouse. The engine grinded to life like it was tired already, like it knew the trip was too long. We pulled out slow. An electric hum stayed in the air. City lights bleeding into the rearview mirror. I watched raindrops race down wet glass. The one I bet on always lost. Small conversations buzzing�" s**t I didn’t understand. Then a soft silence. And the violence of motion. Outside the window�" Iowa flattening itself out beneath cornfields and acres of land, expansive, like it had finally stopped arguing with the sky. Somewhere toward the back of the bus a man chain-smoked cigarettes. Greyhound rules didn’t matter much out there in the dark. He just stared out the window, like the road had answers he’d been asking for too long�" answers he couldn’t find in women or booze. A portable radio hissed in his lap, volume low enough to feel like a secret or an oath. Simon and Garfunkel drifted through it�" Homeward Bound, maybe, Scarborough Fair, maybe something about love and leaving. Soft songs about being lost, about coming back too late, about people who change over time or never really arrive at the same place more than once. It didn’t feel out of place. It felt like it belonged there�" like the whole bus already knew the song in the fiber of the seats and the rain-soaked windows. Paul Simon’s soprano voice mixed like a potion with diesel loneliness, tire noise, and the steady ache of distance stretching over highways mile after mile. And for a while, nobody talked at all. I watched horses eating hay on farms sliding past the window. I bought candy bars at little stops along the way, then boarded the bus again and watched the world slowly disappear into its own sadness.
© 2026 Thomas W CaseAuthor's Note
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Thomas W CaseClear Lake, IAAboutThomas W. Case was born in Oxnard. He has published 3 volumes of poetry. The Bullfrog Dreams of Flying, Artichokes, Avocados, and Van Gogh, and Seedy Town Blues. He has won several poetry contests. Hi.. more.. |
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