Missing the Bus

You wouldn't think a bus would remind me
of you but there was something familiar
about it pulling away from the stop,
ignoring my shouts, disregarding my run.
I stood there, embarrassed and unsettled,
feeling that feeling you get when your plans
drop to the just-vacuumed floor and smash
into tiny, jagged pieces, you know the one.

I stood there, chest heaving, my equilibrium
doubly assaulted. I want to blame the driver
but that would say nothing of the three whacks
of the snooze button, the two drinks late last night,
the troubling letter sitting in the mailbox, and the unease
that's been pooling in my gut for days.

I want to blame you but that would also say nothing
of the thrown broken cell phone on the kitchen floor,
the barbed words I spoke that day and the day before,
the several dozen times I didn't just hold you,
and the hundred or so nights I let the sun go down
on my anger.

You just can't apologize, you'd tell me, so how can I
blame a bus for leaving a bus stop on time without me?
I pick up the sharp bits of glass and one cuts me,
A tiny shard, a song we shared once, Lou Reed,
Perfect Day, you're gonna reap just what you sow.