At the launderette, a tumble dryer is spinning with heated air. The mechanical vibration has a somnolent effect, he slowly raises his face from the book he is reading.

A bus with people on board rushing home stops at the stop where the rain beats the roof of shelter.

A middle-aged man who clicks his tongue at an evening paper headline. A housewife who are busily repacking a ready-made Quiche Lorraine and 300 grams of Waldorf Salad from plastic bags of supermarket to her Birkin. Melancholic facial silhouettes that appear vaguely into a dim light in orange colour.

A girl by the window is looking towards him. She is in love. She is staring at his book through the cover. She strains her eyes to read, as if tracing each chapter of the novel with her fingertips. “The moon is beautiful,” she says innocently, on simultaneously with an insensitive departure whistle. Then the bus heads to the suburbs.

The rain is about to let up, it becomes a small drop smiling. The mundane words that have spilled out from his lips continue to rotate in the tumble dryer.

…

hiromi suzuki is a poet, fiction writer and artist living in Tokyo, Japan. She is the author of Ms. cried – 77 poems by hiromi suzuki (Kisaragi Publishing, 2013), logbook (Hesterglock Press, 2018), INVISIBLE SCENERY (Low Frequency Press, 2018), Andante (AngelHousePress, 2019), Found Words from Olivetti (Simulacrum Press, 2020). Her works have been published internationally in poetry journals, literary journals and anthologies.web site: https://hiromisuzukimicrojournal.tumblr.com/Twitter: @HRMsuzuki

Note: A Bus in the Night is a part of the first poetry collection Ms. cried – 77 poems by hiromi suzuki (kisaragi publishing, 2013 ISBN978-4-901850-42-1). This poem written in Japanese has been translated by hiromi suzuki, 2021.