It Was In The Bus Poem by Jim Levy

I learned a lot in that bus station, the one near the hotel
that rents rooms by the hour. I noticed a young woman
wearing slippers: the color of her blouse matched
the color of her nails. One sharp dresser's hair was dyed,
little things like that, a little girl with lights on the bottom
of her shoes that flashed when she walked by.

But it was in the bus as I boarded that I learned
what I didn't know, had had glimpses of,
a Greyhound packed with people, six a.m.
in Louisville, the sounds of snoring and the stale stench
of human beings locked in all night waking up.
I heard quiet bits of conversations: Stick of gum?
How's that? I had a fright. And learning
of the driver's world of thermos, checking mirrors,
writing in a log, the crackle of his two-way.
Drivers changed but stayed the same,
devoted to the schedule.

And once awake, people's stories: sober tales
of drinking every morning, how they married,
when that blew up, found by Jesus, serving
in the goddamned army...

while out the window, a rusting playground,
rural slums, solitary farms, sparks in the dark,
a water tower, muddy trenches,
a young woman flagged the bus down:
the sound of the pneumatic door.

And faces taught me more than words, ordinary faces
and extraordinary faces, what they looked like going home
and when escaping, solemn faces painted against age,
faces fated for a blow, faces radiating cheerfulness and modesty,
reserved, aroused, a whole range of faces that explained to me
that I would have a face some day, exceptional
or ordinary, that was haunted, mild, elated, sorry,
a record of a life, a face that I deserved. °