When I was little,
there was a man who was always riding the bus.
I’m not sure he knew how to drive a car, but
that wasn’t a good enough reason
to spend all his time on the bus.

He had a big belly,
a dark cap and a plastic trumpet,
and the bus was two shades of green,
light green and dark green.

And whenever this man got off,
he walked all by himself.

He was very good at catching vipers
to extract their venom and sell it
or give it to the pharmacist.

And he always carried
some metal balls,
and whenever he found a suitable place,
he would stop and throw them.

He probably didn’t have many friends,
because he was always alone.

He must have been about seventy,
and I couldn’t say whether he had brothers or twins,
but he always wore a brown corduroy suit
with wide wales.

And he used to make quite a speech,
saying that people from Livorno are everywhere,
even at the North Pole,
but there they’re called Eskimos.

I don’t know what became of him.
Perhaps he’s dead, because so many years have passed.

Now the bus is no longer green
and it’s almost always empty.