I hop on the crosstown bus, an extralong accordion model that’s double the length of a normal bus. The door slurps shut; the bus grumbles away. In this ruckus, the only empty space left is one reserved for those with special needs. Near the back, a roughneck with an untrimmed mustache has plunked his bulging knapsack on the bucket seat next to him. So, I stand. I hang on a strap. At the next stop, more people crumple on—I’m crowded back. When the bus pulls off, the exit door near me doesn’t close. Its hinge is jammed. I can feel the breeze. Another stop, and the aisle gets packed tight. The ramshackle bus bucks, buckles, tacks, toddles side to side. I’m hostage to every jostle. I’m jumbled and squeezed. Everyone stares at the floor, at their phones, at a gossip magazine. But there’s an aberrant movement, a slight shoving, small waves of force that ebb and wobble among the sullen bodies. I’m inched closer to the opening. The bus roars along. In the idle rumpus, I’m afraid, another knock or nudge, and I might be impelled to step hindward, then, pinballed and ballpeened about, unhindered and humbled, fall right out that door. I can resist the shoves better if I follow the flow. If I tried not to budge, I’d tumble over. Get toppled out. Again, the bus stops: more folks pile in. A gruff osmotic rabblement oozing and quivering, shifting and agglutinating, like a squiffy, mutating carcinomic mass. The whole muddlement sloshes. I stumble and rock. I’m jabbed in the ribs. I’m stiffed, tussled, pullulated. Elbowed and tugged. Whirlpooled. I flounder hugger-mugger. My guts go all queasy. My nuts, which once wibbled freely to-fro, greasy and loose, have now contracted, tense. I’m about to be extruded from the bus; pitched aside; defenestrated. Woah boy, I’ve lost my grip. I’m smooshed off. I spill out. I’m dumped on the street. I scrape myself up, bruised, scabbed a bit, a little woozed in my noggin. Otherwise, fresh as a kitten. By what grace or good luck am I alive? I glance around; look up. Huh. Wouldn’t you know? Ah, this here’s my stop!

Will Cordeiro has work published in 32 Poems, AGNI, Bennington Review, Best New Poets, Pleiades, Quarterly West, and The Threepenny Review. Will is the author of Trap Street (Able Muse, 2021) and Whispering Gallery (DUMBO Press, 2024) as well as coauthor of Experimental Writing: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury, 2024) and, forthcoming, The New Foundations of Creative Writing (Bloomsbury, 2027). Will coedits Eggtooth Editions and lives in Guadalajara, Mexico.