Walleah
Press
Currajah
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The 182
- I heave into the bus &
- slip my multitrip into the conductor
- who, without even giving me a thought
- decides I'm user-friendly today.
- I sit in the first vacant seat
- with my back to the driver &
- stare into the anything but
- vacant stares of about thirty young Chinese
- whose parents could have walked the plank for them
- or without giving them the benefit of
- the doubt, themselves been pirates
- for all I know of where
- in Asia. Laos. Cambodia. Vietnam.
- At the Down's Syndrome stop
- the Down's Syndrome workers
- & two or three ring-ins
- board the bus -- among them not
- one keen, lean intelligent Chinese face
- but bus-user friendly to this bus-user anyway
- used to their involuntary noises & spasms
- knowing most of their faces until
- I find myself staring involuntarily
- into another face & she into mine
- both of us looking closely
- & looking again.
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