Bus Poem #31 Poem by robert dickerson

We are on this bus headed downtown.
The passenger to seat ratio
is poor, like tired fruit
people hang from the rails, some
not yet fully awake.

I myself have a fine
shady, single-occupancy window situation.
Good fortune makes me wary, me
a (single) white male, privilege's son,
brim-full of self-recriminations.

Our bus lurches to a stop.
A woman gets on
towing a chubby child, she
comes stoutly down the aisle, sizing things up:
There will be no seat for her this morning at all

The crowd parts once
then once again in a smaller way.
Did our eyes meet for just a moment?
Her four-year old looks tired and cranky.
She says something to her
in a language I cannot understand
then stops beside my seat.