Drunken crack addict trying to act dignified
Being overly polite, saying too much
She’s skeletal, jet black skin clinging to her bones
Skin cracked looking ready to peel off
Teeth rotting, hair like an old brush’s bristles
She sways in the aisle of the bus
Convinced she seems fine
The little Asian man sinks further into himself
His hat seems to be swallowing his head
He waited impatiently for the bus for 20 minutes
Now this
The bemused teens giggle to themselves
The Iranians are too engrossed in their conversation
To notice anything unusual
The bus stops at a red light
Alongside is a BMW
The suited white man at the wheel is keeping the beat
To loud rock music by drumming on the steering wheel
He’s oblivious to crack addicts except as abstractions
Other people see and talk of them
He doesn’t realize there’s a living breathing one
A few feet away on a bus
He doesn’t know from busses anyway
They’re for kids, old people and the poor
And those little Chinese people in the next neighborhood
He zooms off when the light turns
The bus plods along, the crackhead finally taking a seat
She chortles at nothing, then everything
Carries on a conversation with an unseen friend
A fat teenager gets on the bus cussing into her cell phone
The Asian man shrinks some more
The Iranians keep talking
The driver keeps driving
I can’t wait to get off
Oh well
