Riding on the MUNI

a poem meant to be spoken aloud

by Tina Fields

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[Note: The MUNI is a form of public transportation in San Francisco, linked municipal railcars (pictured below).  It sort of shakes up and down when it gets going fast; thus the jogging rhythm of this poem.]

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So I’m riding on the MUNI…

Yeh I’m riding on the MUNI…

I’m riding on the MUNI…

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I just came here from Nevada, on the edge of the Great Basin,

where my very nearest neighbor is a cow five miles away;

Where your psyche reaches out, expanding,

breathing out, and listens to the thoughts of birds –

a hawk!  golden spirals overhead;

bloodmind riveted on rustling,

slightest movement in the grasses…

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And I lurch to San Francisco, where I’m riding on the MUNI

And we’re packed in like anchovies but pretend no one is touching:

With my clothes wrapped tight around me I am riding on the MUNI;

With my thoughts wrapped tight around me I am riding on the MUNI

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And I’m riding on the MUNI

And I’m riding on the MUNI…

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And he swoops!  with talons twisted, each in perfect ballerina’s pointe,

exquisite fatal symmetry, dull gleaming in the twilight;

And my heart it hears the mouse scream!

and my mind shrieks bloody victory!

…and  … somehow I’ve got possession of my nearest neighbor’s paper;

got it clutched here in my talons, with a death-grip on Dear Abby…

I’m here, riding on the MUNI,

with ink tickling my tastebuds

and the scent still in my nostrils of fresh literary kill…

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But a furtive glance around… reveals…

I don’t know if they notice!

All their eyes are hid by glasses darkly gleaming in the foglight,

as we strangers huddle lonely, cradled in each others’ feathers;

With our buttocks jammed together

and our minds like shattered sunlight

as we’re riding on the MUNI.

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