The Bus Ride
I’ve been driving this bus for eight years
Today I lurched into my usual spot
Right in the thickness of determined mud
Sweat percolated on my forehead
My shirt saturated
I sat, the sun and I, we waited
A passenger ambled forward
Fumbled up the stairs
Seating himself behind me
I assumed he was drunk
He talked about the love for a child
About his son that graduated medical school
He’d just lost his only son
An overdose
He was on his way to tell the mother
I told him I’d lost my son too
A car accident
In a decaying bus as hot as summer’s asphalt
We bowed our heads and sobbed
Tears of desperation
We wept in harmony
Short lived lives
Questions that can never be answered
He was a solo passenger
I drove him across town to tell
His wife who would soon dissolve
Our solidarity that day brought
Some degree of solace
Our weeping
Opened arms to grieve