This is the place where the schoolbus turns.
The driver backs and snuffles, backs and goes.
It is always winter on these roads: high bridges
and birds in flight above you all the way.
The heart can hardly stay. The heart implodes.

The heart can hardly stay. The heart implodes.
The body gets down and walks across a field.
There are mushrooms – as in stories,
as in songs. They grow near rabbits. 
Slope of hillside,

slant of rain – and here we are again:
a green-roofed house behind the trees.
The body gets down and walks across a field.
The house is full of homework fed by sleep.
A boy combs his hair, brushes his teeth,

or climbs to the top of the valley.
The sky is handkerchiefs, a single shirt.
He wants to climb higher, into a cloud.
He wants to climb into a cloud.
Whatever else is somewhere up ahead.

The schoolbus is driving through the night.
Whatever else is somewhere up ahead.
A boy keeps on hitting his head.
The small girls sing. It's nothing.
We don't know what we mean.

Is that another drink the man is pouring? 
The boy turns the handle of the separator.
Cream. The boy stands on the railway line, 
disappearing in rust and shine. 
Goodnight Irene. Goodnight Irene.

The big door closes. A voice in the kitchen
says: Enough's enough. Running a bath. 
Always cold water, boiled in pots. 
The driver swears, and then he coughs. 
The big door closes and you can't get off.