Joe Cottonwood

The Wheel
 
A clunk one morning 
as I drive the creaky
Lutheran school bus.

A boy shouts The wheel!
Side mirror I see it wobbling all alone 
away from us
as the coach tilts.
The brake pedal drops squirting yellow fluid
like a trail of pee behind us useless
with a load of suddenly
big-eyed kids.

No screams, 
some gasps.

So we coast as I steer which is obvious
but somehow heroic toward the uphill
and stop like a giant orange tricycle
against the curb.

I shout Nobody leaves
and awaiting help we sing
The wheels on the bus go round and round
which was, the kids said, 
pretty damn funny.

Whatever about their Savior 
those kids learn in Lutheran school 
they will remember
a wheel, a song. 

Joe Cottonwood has repaired hundreds of houses to support his writing habit among the redwood trees in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. His newest book of poetry is “buck naked is the opposite of hate” from Sheila-Na-Gig Press.