Once on a Bus
Aaron Smith
I sniffed the neck of a man
in front of me. It was a compulsion,
the way some people eat their own hair.
He smelled like men smell at the end of the day.
Not clean, not dirty, but lived in.
This is important because story is important.
You have a right to know what you’re getting into.
Aaron Smith is the author of Blue on Blue Ground (Pittsburgh 2005), winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, and What’s Required (Thorngate Road, 2003), winner of the Frank O’Hara Chapbook Prize. His work has appeared in various publications including Barrow Street, Columbia Poetry Review, Court Green, 5 AM, Pleiades, and Prairie Schooner. He’s a 2007 Fellow in Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts.
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