Dave Bonta's "Desire" is a short, strange poem that works by stacking images instead of explaining itself. The speaker begins by calling yesterday an "oven," which suggests something warm and enclosed, but also something that can bake or burn. Then comes "an old bus / I miss sometimes." The shift is odd and a little funny, yet it feels true: we often long for ordinary, rattling things from the past, not just grand moments.
The final lines turn to "some other part / of the book of night." The speaker seems restless or preoccupied, thinking about a different chapter of the dark, perhaps the unknown or the unlived. Judging by the title, desire here isn't a clear wish for one thing. It's a drifting pull between memory and mystery. The mood is quiet, wistful, and dreamlike, with a gentle ache rather than sharp sorrow. The poem leaves its connections open, so the reader has to feel their way through, much like riding an old bus at night without knowing the stop.