The Last Bus Home Poem by Sheena Blackhall

The last bus home is always full of drunks
Wanting to pour their soul all over the seat

The moon doesn’t care
The moon’s seen it all
No shocking the moon

Occasionally it sends down rain
On the queue for the last bus home
Just for the hell of it
A bit of moon fun

The last bus home clanks on
Like cooking pans falling
After mother’s had one too many

It passes the parked cars
Sulking in the street
The ones you have to jump start
To begin with

It passes the dog-walker
Letting his pooches off the leash
To foul the kiddies playpark
(No flies on him)

It passes the door
Where every Saturday night
Regular as clockwork
Tick tock bash bop
Mr Arkwright thrashes his wife
To keep her on her toes

It passes the harbour street
Where junkie girls with unpronounceable names
Turn tricks and think of home

It drives through pools of sick
And wastes of take away wrappers

This is why the last bus home
Is always sad
It always hopes for a modicum of loveliness
Like the boy in the skyscraper who dreams of owning a horse