The woman, young but dew-dried, smiles as she moves up the aisle of the bus, in search of an empty seat to call, briefly, her own. A nice smile but yellowing, evenly tinted by avoidance of the dentist, but tended to and healthy looking. But yellow. That would never have happened “when I was young” (that special time for every old fool), but I see that now with some frequency. And there are, as there were not, so long ago, cars hustling down the roads unwashed, with a single headlight out while the remaining headlight stares straight ahead, “Nothing to see here, Officer, move on, thanks please.” Houses and yards are imperfectly cared for, roof tiles missing, rose bushes gone to ruin, siding stained and scraped – all signs of a growing neglect as more and more money trickles out of the holes in our wallets. “Is that a colander there, or are you just glad to see me?” We’re glad to see a smiling face, however yellow the teeth may be, as opposed to the looming snarls of the collapse that old age and the evidence foretell, where teeth will be bared, yellow and red in the land of withered plenty, and perhaps tartar will chip off exposed bones, revealing the shiny white teeth of the childhood of ourselves and our time. The homeless already have their dens. They will look out of the alleys at clashes and carnage, snatch up fallen hats and umbrellas, a single shoe torn off in battle, and tuck their prizes under their heavy stained coats, before they scurry off, cackling, into the shadows.
JBMulligan has published more than 1100 poems and stories in various magazines over the past 45 years, and has had two chapbooks: The Stations of the Cross and THIS WAY TO THE EGRESS, as well as 2 e-books: The City of Now and Then, and A Book of Psalms (a loose translation). He has appeared in more than a dozen anthologies.