The Bus Driver
Soon I will pull an emptiness behind me
Over these hills the way I used to
Pull the empty rabbit traps
Over the snow
Each and every one of them sprung
And empty as my belly
But first I have to drop off the last boy
Who lives the farthest out
I’m not even supposed to take him this far
But I’ve lied to men I’ll never meet
About where it is he lives
He moves a few seats closer
So he is sitting right behind me
Out of the kindness I can see
He suffers from and will suffer
From all his life but we don’t speak
We are both of us much too shy
And anyway what is there
To say to one another?
I am old and black and he is young
And white and we just happen
To share a world
We can both see its sorrowful
Beauty without having
To tell one another about it
Yes the nameless cricks
The road crosses
Yes the oaks and lanes
That lead to houses
That will never be mine
To walk up to their doors would be
To have the police called on me
I know by the way he stares
Out the window that
All this must move him still
Though these woods are too small
To remain mysterious to him for long
He will grow up and not know
What to do but leave forever
And from the distance he will put
Between us he will try
To write about me using my voice
To do it the way one borrows
A friend’s gun to kill him
He will write about what he believes
It must have been like for me
To drive this bus
With his breath on my neck
But I’m not driving this bus
I am dragging it behind us
Like an empty trap over the snow
Thinking I know
Just what my father will say
When I walk in
You went and set it
Too light again
It was breath that sprung it