Bus Tickets, Buffalo to Toronto

Emily Gordon

The only paper left to print

the tickets to come visit you

is linen finish I last used

for a New Yorker cover letter,

a résumé, enclosed, folded,

scored, a sheet full of ink-looped

practice signatures,

those hopeful watermarks,

that unanswered wish,

transferred into this

half-answered wish,

this homemade currency

I might exchange for you.

There were vats of rags

in a cauldron of slurry

pressed by Fourdrinier and me

into costly billets doux—

the papers I will have on me

when stopped on the border,

my identity, for now,

my destination, possibly,

carried by a rash nighttime charge,

a searing desire,

a Neon Bus, round trip,

my admission made probable

with a recycled ink cartridge—

the last of the lavish paper,

the last of my grand demonstrations,

without promise of reception,

without guarantee of delivery.