Ambulance hearts howl inside bus passengers

who avoid each other's undersea tunnel eyes.

I used to be classy, but I gave up that shit,

says a girl with hair braided into whips.

An older man drools on her and responds,

You're so pretty, I could hang you on my wall,

laughing like an organ grinder with emphysema.

They shoot the foot-stomper for food

and ration out his body using the metric system.

Everyone gets their fill and they curl up for a nap.

Bloody mouths send out burps like love notes smuggled in class.

To staunch boredom's wound, they wind his brain onto a film reel,

laughing at those private thoughts projected on the screen.

One man steps on another's foot.

He regurgitates an apology, a cockroach on a pewter plate.

The victim just smiles and calls the police.

At the next stop, the police board the bus with a desk and an Uzi.

They have the victim fill out three days of paperwork.

No one is allowed to leave, but nobody gets upset.

It's official business, needs to be properly documented and stamped.

Finally, guilt volcanoes like indigestion inside a priest

and he arises in rapture, commanding:

Jesus tells us that we should love all people!!

A police officer looks up from his paperwork and says

Father, you didn't provide proper the MLA citation for that quote.

Bullets fly through the priest like feverish mosquitoes

and he falls to his knees, leaking like a nuclear power plant.

The girl with the cat o'nine tails hair says,

Who needs a soul? It's just an extra 27 grams. I'm watching my weight. . .